


Hello, Cruel World

by JC_Audetat



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, F/M, M/M, Major Illness, Nazis, This Is Literally The Worst I'm So Sorry, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-12 02:04:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16864177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JC_Audetat/pseuds/JC_Audetat
Summary: The Basterds work as teachers in a high school. The staff is composed of Nazis. There will be heart! There will be tears! Life and death! Drama! Suspense! This is actually really awful but it needed to be shared.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an abandoned work that an ex-friend and I started writing about two years ago. I just rediscovered it and thought it was the most ridiculous thing, so obviously I had to put it on here. Half of it is written by me, half of it is written by the ex-friend. I have no idea what we were thinking when we were making this. Maybe I'll finish it someday just so I feel accomplished in some respect. Who knows.

                The tip of Aldo’s finger was bleeding. He had been mercilessly picking at the corner of his desk, grinding his teeth subtly, waiting for the damn kid to spit out the next idiotic question.                                           

                “Mr. Raine,” Max interrupted for the third time that period, “How many states are there in Europe?” Everyone at his table laughed in unison. _How many times does this little fucker have to ruin my day, goddamn these fucking dirtbags…_ His frantic, irate thoughts continued in the back of his mind as he replied, unable to mask his intense annoyance.

                “Max, how many times have I told you that there is such a thing as a dumb question?”

                No reply, save for the obnoxious laughter. Max ducked his head, his face red.

                “Mhm. And, how many times have I told you that I have never heard one smart thing come out of your mouth?”

                The laughter intensified. Nobody ever took the hint of vexation in his voice seriously.

                “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Aldo sighed when Max finally decided to show a bit of remorse in his expression, however false it was. He would continue to teach these feather-heads for another hour and eight minutes, and every minute would seem longer than the last. He wasn’t ready to go through this again. He felt like every time another class started, he was getting closer and closer to losing it.

                Gradually, over the past two months since the school year started, the new principal has made every chance to make this school worse—and, however small these changes he made were, they were impactful, and greatly so. Not in a good way, either. No, it started with him cancelling a few of the extracurriculars. He claimed that this was a result of some budget cuts, but he doesn’t give a fuck about that. He’s a temp, it’s just a matter of time before he’s sent back to wherever the fuck he came from… that’s what Aldo was hoping, anyway.

                No, Principal Hitler only cancelled the after-school clubs centered around diversity and whatnot. He let the chess nerds have their fun with their tournaments and all that, and said _auf wiedersehen_ to the Multicultural Club, the Jewish Student Council, and the LGBT Alliance. It was a shame, too, because this resulted in a lot more “freedom of speech”, for lack of a better term, for the homophobes, anti-Semites, and racists. In the past week, Aldo had heard more derogatory terms than he would have in an entire year of his life prior to this disaster of a school year.

                As Aldo prepared to continue on with the lesson about the Stamp Act of 1765, he couldn’t help but catch a word he’d hoped he would never hear again in his life. And it came from that same _pest,_ Max Fischer. He was like an immortal cockroach.

                “Oh my god, he isn’t a _kike,_ is he?” Max’s voice, in that moment, upon using that word, became twice as infuriating and troublesome. Aldo froze for a moment, unsure how to react. Everyone continued talking loudly, and he was the only one who seemed to have heard Max correctly. _Kike._ The last time Aldo heard that word, there was blood, yelling, and a lot of pain involved; and he didn’t want to relive that, but with everything in him he felt like, as he let that word sink in, he would begin to remember that pain more and more, just as if it we—

                “Fischer, you get yer ass over here right now!” Aldo yelled, clenching his jaw in efforts to control his voice. The class fell silent, _for once._ Max, for the first time since Aldo had met him, looked absolutely horrified. He stayed there for a few seconds, frozen in his seat. The other students murmured amongst themselves, gossiping, with little shit-eating smirks on their faces—except for two specific students in the back who never seemed to give a rat’s ass about gossiping, or talking loudly, or anything that the others would love to do.

                Max finally managed to stumble out of his chair, stiff-legged and walking as if he had a stick up his ass.

                “Fischer, have you met our pal, Dr. Hitler?” Aldo asked, staring down at Max with a beyond-disappointed expression on his face.

                “N-No…” The little shit looked like he was about to have a mental breakdown. _Good._

                “Well, I’m sure he’ll love to meet ya, you’ll probably get along just fine,” he said with a sick smile, grabbing Fischer by his collar and basically dragging him out of the classroom.

* * *

                “Well, _fuck a duck,_ ” Donny muttered under his breath, his glare hardening as he stared at his computer screen, clenching his fists. As he read a recently delivered email from their _lovely_ principal, he couldn’t help but grind his teeth together bitterly, wondering how he would keep his outrageously ill-willed feelings towards this prick at bay.

                As of six minutes ago, as informed in the email, Multicultural Club had been canceled. The email droned on about “budget cuts” and “funding”, which, quite frankly, Donny couldn’t care less about. He was already pissed about his and Omar’s club being shut down, and this was just the icing on the very disgusting cake.

                They were only two months into the school year and there had already been one suicide and many, many death threats. All Donny knew about the suicide was the girl’s name was Naomi and she had been very active in the Jewish Student Union; and, judging by all the slurs he heard on a day-to-day basis, the antisemitism in this school could have been one of the factors that her suicide was a result of.

                And this school was really good, at first—before the shit hit the fan, thanks to Principal Ass-Licker. Last school year, Fereydun wasn’t a total shithole; slurs were considerably rare and, well, no one killed themselves.

                Donny sighed heavily and decided to call Omar. They needed to figure out a plan; anything. He couldn’t let this happen, not to the few students who actually weren’t terrible people, and not to the rest of the staff— _most_ of which weren’t total fans of Principal Hitler either.

_I am so done with this bullshit._

                “Hello?” Omar’s voice, the only thing he could bear to listen to these days, welcomed him with its honest and innocent tone. Donny wondered how much of that purity was lost when Omar witnessed what those idiots had said to him in his Geometry class. Donny had heard what those same assholes had to say to him, as well. And it was not meant for the faint of heart; thus, it was not meant for Omar.

                “Hey, did you get the email?” Donny asked, his voice brisk and straightforward. He heard a forlorn sigh from the other end of the line. A quiet ‘yes’ followed suit, too much emotion encased in that one-word response.

                “We need to take care of this, once and for all. Meet me and Aldo in his room after school.”


	2. Chapter 2

                The cafeteria smelled of whatever type of animal dung they were giving out that day. Everyone’s voices blended together to form one sickeningly annoying, indecipherable noise. It was deafening to the few students who weren’t busy talking their neighbor’s ear off. Genève, Alexander, Gustave, and Rivka were probably the only people in the entire cafeteria whose voices did not contribute to the infuriatingly boisterous noises that assailed their ears so relentlessly. Even the advisors were yelling.

                There were four silent students sitting at an otherwise empty table, only occasionally talking amongst themselves, albeit in a rather reserved fashion. They were commonly seen as freaks in the eyes of the other students and were not accustomed to making spectacles of themselves. One of the kids, Genève, who sat at the far-right hand side of the table, was known to be catholic and often wore a rosary denoting to her religion—needless to say, at a school such as Fereydun had become, she was given a lot of shit for that. Gustave, who sat on Genève’s left and currently busied himself with a book called _Artillery Through the Ages_ , was known for getting into fights with the other kids, and it wasn’t surprising that he was shunned by most everyone, save for his three friends at that very table. His high school career had ended as soon as it began; he was a great student, of course, but a lot of his teachers were very biased and, as a result of their hatred of him, wrongly graded his tests at his peril. He also received death threats from the homophobes of Fereydun on a daily basis, as a consequence of him being openly bisexual at school.

                Then there was Alexander, the only one at the table who didn’t seem to be a target for any of the more bothersome people at that school—not at first, anyway. He was currently reading over Gustave’s shoulder, as he often did. He made an effort to read anything that currently lie within the field of his vision, in order to account for his learning disability which he often succeeded at overcoming—dyslexia. And, finally, there was Rivka, who slumped in her chair, her head hanging, lost in thought. She, out of everyone at the table, was most impacted by the detriments of Fereydun. Her twin sister, Naomi, had killed herself at the beginning of the year, as a result of the students who relentlessly attacked her for being Jewish, and Mr. Rachtman, her music teacher, who too mercilessly discriminated against and tormented her. Rivka was affected just as badly by the students, though she didn’t have Rachtman as a teacher—thank God.

                No one at the table wanted to address Rivka’s grief-induced behavior. There was nothing they could do but give her space, which she seemed to appreciate at times. Bringing it up seemed too invasive, anyway.

                As Genève quietly ate her food, casting a sideways glance at Gustave and Alexander—the latter of whom had scooted his chair closer to Gustave’s so that he could read without having to crane his neck—the cafeteria was suddenly filled with the sound of static (which, oddly enough, dominated the volume of the yelling and laughing throughout the room), signifying that the intercom had suddenly been turned on. The voice of Fereydun’s guidance counselor, Mr. Landa, replaced the overwhelming noise of static, and the voices in the cafeteria died down just enough for the four students to hear, though only Rivka and Genève were actually paying attention.

                Just as Mr. Landa had begun reminding the students of the new dress code policy, the assistant principal, Mr. Zoller, who had been spending the first half of lunch dress coding students, came up from behind Genève and tapped her on the shoulder rather briskly. She turned her head and looked up at him nervously and he leaned down to say something in her ear. Rivka took notice of this exchange and leaned forward to peer around Alexander and Gustave, watching as Genève’s face went pale with anxiety. She nodded her head shakily and stood up from the table just as Mr. Zoller straightened and made his way towards the cafeteria doors. Genève made frantic eye contact with Rivka just before reluctantly leaving after Mr. Zoller, and Rivka poked Alexander’s shoulder to get his attention and pointed in the direction that Rivka had left in. He took notice, and Gustave followed suit.

                “What happened?” Alex asked Rivka, looking back at her. She shrugged and crossed her arms, still watching as the two disappeared into another hallway.

                “I think it had something to do with the dress code policy,” she muttered, gritting her teeth as she put two and two together.

                “What? She’s not even—…ohh…” Alexander grimaced as he remembered the email that had been sent out to all their parents. It had very vaguely described the dress code, and it was just vague enough to get away with its intentions. The dress code policy was centered around religious aspects, restricting things like kippahs or, in Genève’s case, rosaries. “But, I mean… They’re not really gonna do anything, right?”

                “I don’t know,” she said quietly.

                “She will probably be back before the bell rings,” Gustave assured them. But the silence they settled in was uneasy, and Alexander gave up on reading for the time being, too anxious to be able to commit to that level of concentration anymore.

                Much to their confusion and dismay, even after the bell rang there was no sign of Genève. The three students stood there for a few seconds before leaving, watching for any sign of her return; but there was nothing.

                “Should we go look for her…?” Alexander asked, unsure. As Rivka gathered her books, Gustave shook his head in response.

                “We should give it more time…”

                “No,” Rivka interrupted, glaring at Gustave. “We need to go tell Mr. Wicki what happened.” The four of them shared their trust for the science teacher, and Mr. Wicki was both aware of and strongly against everything that the new principal has done to the school. They all knew they could confide in him, and Rivka was too paranoid after the death of her sister to simply dismiss the situation at hand.

                Gustave shrugged nonchalantly. “Fine.” He didn’t have a problem with it, since he had science next anyway. So, the three students left the cafeteria and headed upstairs to the science classroom, walking at a rapid pace. Rivka was the first to swing the door to the classroom open, and the other two boys followed quickly behind her.

                “Mr. Wicki,” Rivka gasped, out of breath from her frantic walk, “we need your help.”

                The science teacher looked up from his computer at the three grim-faced students and stood up from his chair, rounding the side of his desk and crossing his arms.

                “What do you need?” he asked cautiously, leaning against the front of his desk and looking down at all three of them.

                “We think Mr. Zoller just dress coded Genève for wearing her rosary, and he took her to his office. She’s been gone for twenty minutes,” Rivka explained frantically.

                “We think… something may have happened,” Gustave added, in a much softer tone. Mr. Wicki furrowed his eyebrows thoughtfully and nodded in understanding, casting a sideways glance at the other students who were just then entering his classroom.

                “Okay, don’t worry, I’ll figure out what happened. You should get to class,” he told Alexander and Rivka. “Gustave and I will handle it.” Rivka looked back at Gustave uncertainly and he nodded reassuringly at her. She reluctantly complied and headed towards the door, Alexander trailing behind her.

                “Bye, Mr. Wicki,” she called over her shoulder, letting her head hang once again, seemingly exhausted as she left Gustave and the science teacher to handle this mess.

                Gustave stepped closer to the science teacher as the class became fuller and fuller, conscious of the possibility that someone could easily listen in on their conversation. “Do you think anything serious could have happened?” he asked hesitantly, feeling idiotic and presumptuous for asking. But Mr. Wicki just shrugged.

                “Normally, I wouldn’t be as suspicious, but… I don’t trust Zoller. I never have.” He glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the class before walking over to the telephone on the wall, right next to the door. He dialed in a number and stepped out of the classroom for about a minute, letting the door close on the cord that connected the phone to the wall. Gustave stepped closer to the teacher’s desk, feeling awkward as the only person at the front of the room. But, sure enough, Mr. Wicki was soon standing beside Gustave again.

                “I called in Officer Stiglitz—he’s the community resources officer and his office is close to Zoller’s, so he can tell us what he saw. Alright?” Gustave just nodded, not saying a word. He was slowly growing just as worried as Rivka had been at first, with every passing minute. If Genève were to return, she would return to the same science class, since this was her next class as well. And she hadn’t. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It had been twenty-two minutes since Genève had disappeared with Zoller.

                Officer Stiglitz arrived a minute and a half later, concern evident on his face. Gustave was still standing with Mr. Wicki, and Stiglitz was quick to tell them what he’d seen—which wasn’t too helpful. When he did speak, though, he spoke in German, considering that was his first language and Mr. Wicki was fluent in it as well.

 _“I tried to see what Zoller was doing in his office, but the blinds were drawn,”_ Officer Stiglitz said rapidly in German to Mr. Wicki. To Gustave, and probably to the two administrators, that was a red flag. Unable to restrain himself, Gustave replied with a question, speaking in his native tongue as well, assuming that Stiglitz wasn’t familiar with the English language.

 _"Did you hear voices from inside?”_ he asked him, glancing nervously at Mr. Wicki.

_“Yes, though I couldn’t tell exactly what they said. But Zoller was yelling.”_

                Gustave nodded thoughtfully and Mr. Wicki and Officer Stiglitz talked amongst themselves and Gustave grabbed his bookbag from the floor where he had left it, next to his usual seat.

 _“Gustave, what are you doing?”_ Mr. Wicki asked. Gustave walked back over to them with a determined expression.

 _“I’m going with you to find out what’s happening,”_ Gustave told Officer Stiglitz, who shared a questioning glance with Mr. Wicki, as if asking for permission to take Gustave with him. Mr. Wicki nodded and turned to Gustave.

 _“Come back when you find her,”_ was all he said. And with that, Officer Stiglitz and Gustave left the classroom and headed down the hallway at a brisk pace. Gustave wasn’t sure what he would do; but, then again, he often waited for his impulse to direct his actions, so he decided to rely on that. That was a good plan… right?

                Just as the two rounded a corner, they caught sight of the U.S. History teacher, Mr. Raine, practically dragging a kid down the hall. Gustave recognized the student as Max Fischer; he’d gotten into a fight with him once over some homophobic insults Max had thrown at him. He clenched his fists instinctively, wishing he’d punched him harder the last time.

                Mr. Raine noticed Stiglitz and Gustave as well, and smiled upon seeing them. “Well, if it isn’t one of my favorite students… Hi Gustave,” he greeted, nodding to Hugo as well. “Hugo, what’re you doing with Gustave? You need a translator or somethin’?” he laughed, and Hugo rolled his eyes, obviously offended.

                “What are you doing with _him_?” Hugo countered, pointing and glaring at Fischer.

                “Oh, this little prick? Ah, he’s going to meet our lovely principal and we’re gonna have a little chat about derogatory terms. Ain’t we, Max?” he asked, his grip on Fischer’s shoulder tightening. Gustave was glad to see that Max was crying.

 _“What makes you think Principal Hitler will do anything about that, besides praise him?”_ Gustave muttered under his breath. Hugo, the only one there who could understand him, chuckled slightly. Mr. Raine, however, just looked confused.

                “Well anyway… what’re you two really doin’?” he asked, prompting them to follow him as he continued walking towards the stairs.

                “We will tell you… when that student of yours is gone,” Hugo replied discreetly in his thick accent. Mr. Raine nodded in understanding after a moment, and they continued down the stairs and towards the front office.

 _“Is Zoller’s office in the front office as well?”_ Gustave asked, to which Officer Stiglitz nodded. Mr. Raine glanced between the two Germans, bewildered.

                “You’re a new student, ain’t you, Gustave?” Mr. Raine observed. Gustave nodded in response.

                “Yes, the other school I used to go to was very violent…” And, at that time, Max decided to open his mouth once again and say something stupid, as always.

                “Were they not _fag_ -inclusive?” he asked in a mocking tone.

                Gustave fell silent and stared at the ground, embarrassed. Usually, he would lunge at Fischer and bash his face in, but there were teachers right there, and if he got one more detention he would be expelled—which didn’t seem like a totally uninviting idea at the moment.

                But Mr. Raine beat him to it anyway, turning Fischer around by his shoulders so he was staring up at him. The complacent smirk had vanished from his lips once more, and his eyes widened.

                “Fischer, so help me God, if you do not shut up right now, I will throw you off a bridge,” he nearly yelled. “Is that clear?” he demanded, shaking his shoulders as he said so. Max nodded, petrified. Officer Stiglitz and Mr. Raine shared a glance, and no one spoke until they dropped Fischer off at the principal’s office. Mr. Raine went inside with Max, and Gustave and Officer Stiglitz waited, silently and patiently, in the hallway.

 

                “Mr. Hitler, I do regret to inform you that this student used an offensive slur in class today,” Aldo announced, pushing Fischer into the chair in front of the principal’s desk, “and I do believe be needs some discipline. What’d you say?” he asked. He hadn’t met the principal since the very beginning of the school year, and he could only hope that the reasons he canceled those clubs really did have to do with budget cuts.

                “What do you want me to do about it?” the principal asked in what was undoubtedly a German accent. “Do you really expect me to give him a detention for that?”

                “Well, I was expecting a referral, but alright.” Hitler scoffed in response.

                “I don’t believe you are serious…” He forced a laugh but decided to concede. “What did he say, Mr.…?”

                “Uh, Raine. Aldo Raine. And he called someone a _‘kike’_. Ain’t that right, Max? Oh yeah, and he also called someone a ‘ _fag’._ Now, I don’t know about you, but I do not believe that is acceptable. Would you agree?” Hitler smirked and shrugged in a patronizing way.

                “There must have been some truth to his words, though?” he prompted. Aldo straightened and glared at Hitler with an intolerant, disappointed grimace.

                “No, sir, there was not. He was saying something offensive for shits ‘n’ giggles, and to make someone feel bad, not to spread the gospel. Now are you gonna do somethin’ or not?” he demanded. Hitler didn’t respond for a minute, still wearing that dumb, condescending smile on his face.

                 At that point, Aldo gave up on the principal.

                “Y’know what, I don’t have time for this. Have a nice day,” Aldo said with a fake-ass smile, slamming the door on his way out. “Now, where were we?” he asked aloud, emerging into the hallway where Stiglitz and Gustave had been waiting. “Oh, yeah, what were you gonna tell me, Hugo?”

* * *

                Genève traced her fingers along her neck. A bruise was quickly forming where Zoller had gruffly torn her rosary away.  She had been shoved into a cushioned chair that faced Zoller’s desk, and he stood leaning over his desk from the other side so that his face was closer to hers—perhaps so that he could seem more intimidating. It worked. His palms were resting on the desk, supporting his weight, and his position resembled that of a police officer interrogating a suspect.

                “I assume you were not aware of the new dress code policy, hm?” he prompted, with a forced smile. Her rosary was broken, in the trash, save for a few beads which had escaped onto the floor, unnoticed. She felt frozen, not so much out of fear as shock, outraged by what had just happened. The skin on her neck burned.

                She shook her head no—this was a lie, of course. Mr. Zoller scoffed, with that same, fake smile.

                “Of course. Each one of you _God botherers_ is more ignorant than the last. Do you have any idea how much you disrespect me by wearing that—that _trash_? I’m not sure if you’ve realized, but your _religious freedom_ —”, he said this with a scorn, “—is not everyone’s top priority; and yet you selfishly make a fool out of me by wearing that ridiculous, ugly thing, and I can’t just stand by and let you _terrorize_ me, can I?”  By this point in his rant, his tone had reached a higher pitch and his face had contorted into a scorn. He froze, one accusatory finger still pointed at Genève, and took a moment to compose himself. A deep breath, and another superficial smile. “Now, what do you have to say for yourself? Do you have an _excuse_ for your unacceptable behavior? A reason for me not to suspend you?” he challenged. Genève stared at him for a moment.

                She shrugged indifferently, unsure of how to respond. She could almost imagine a purple line on her neck appearing, very gradually, in front of Mr. Zoller’s eyes. “Excuse? For having religious beliefs?” she asked, confusion evident in her voice. Zoller scowled and stood up straight, rounding the desk to stand in front of her, pointing at her again. He was infuriated. He opened his mouth to speak again but was interrupted by the door swinging open.

                Genève whirled around in her chair to find Gustave, Mr. Raine, and another man, who she believed was an officer of some kind, in the doorway. She breathed a long sigh of relief upon seeing them, no longer feeling suffocated by her own vulnerability.

                “Hello, Freddy,” Mr. Raine said with a sarcastic smile. “We were just wondering where Ms. Noury had disappeared to. Is there a problem here?”

                Mr. Zoller smiled nervously and shrugged with a small, curt laugh. “No. No, of course not. I was just having a word with her.”

                “Is that so?” Mr. Raine said, glancing at Genève and catching sight of her neck. “Well, then you wouldn’t mind if she goes back to class, would ya?” he inquired, eyeing Zoller cautiously.

                Zoller shrugged and shook his head. “No, we were just finishing up in here…”

                Without hesitation, Genève rose from her chair and joined the three men out in the hallway, eyes fixed on the ground. She made eye contact with Gustave and smiled gratefully at him.

                “Thanks for coming to look for me,” she said. He didn’t reply to what she said, but rather took the chance to ask her what happened to her neck.

                “Did Zoller do that?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. She shrugged and at the same time pretended like she didn’t hear him, hoping he’d just let it go for now. But it was too far past that, and even the two other bystanders were listening with concern, anticipating an answer. She threw a defensive glance at all of them and shrugged again.

                “Yeah,” she said quietly, and rather standoffishly. Mr. Raine huffed in indignation and crouched in front of Genève so that he met her eye level.

                “Alright, listen here, and listen good. Ain’t nobody got a right to leave a bruise on you, and I sure as hell am not gonna let that slide. This man right here is officer Hugo Stiglitz, and he ain’t gonna let it slide either. We’re gonna do something about this, and don’t you forget it, alright?” he said sternly. She met his gaze and, after a moment, nodded slightly. Mr. Raine stood up and told Stiglitz to “go take care of Zoller”, which, as Genève would later discover, meant “go kick Zoller’s ass behind the school and throw him in the dumpster.”


	3. Chapter 3

                Alexander stepped into the large, dark auditorium, the cool air hitting his face as he swung the heavy, creaking door open. His mind was riddled with questions and worry that he couldn’t seem to silence, and his mind was, as usual, moving at a quicker pace than time around him. His theatre teacher, Mr. Hicox, sat at a desk that appeared, ridiculously small, at the foot of the exposed stage; he switched his attention briefly from his computer screen to Alexander, flashed him a welcoming smile, and then focused back on what was probably the attendance list. Alexander made his way slowly up the steadily sloping floor that rose to meet a stairway to the stage, looking for a seat that was located close enough to hear Mr. Hicox’s instructions, but far enough to away be subtly isolated from everyone else. Each step he took up that isle was more unsure than the last— _Shouldn’t I be with Gustave, looking for Genève?_ he thought hesitantly to himself. _Yes, I probably should…_ He concluded that it was too late to turn back, however, upon hearing the tardy bell echo throughout the vast auditorium. He reluctantly accepted his fate, quietly sinking into one of the inconspicuously placed seats amongst the middle rows. Mr. Hicox finally diverted his attention from his computer, standing up to face the class and begin the lesson.

                “Now,” he started, his thick English accent resonating throughout the expanse of the room, “If you will please continue the assignment that I gave to you yesterday, then we will shortly be moving on to on to our next unit on Elizabethan playwrights and their influences on modern-day culture.” Due to his accent, Mr. Hicox’s sonorous voice carried a rather intriguing quality that was quite unique in comparison to the myriad German, French, and American accents of Alexander’s other teachers.

                When Mr. Hicox finished with his usual brief instructions, Alex got up from his seat and weaved his way through the rows of chairs, navigating his way to the front of the room, where his unfortunate project team awaited him. Internally groaning with despair, he fought the urge to turn on his heel and leave, and went to join his two partners, Salma and William. They, however, welcomed him with overwhelming enthusiasm. As much as he hated them, though—along with most other people at Fereydun—he loved this class and was determined to get credit for the project.

                For some reason or another, everyone tended to like Alex; perhaps for his charisma, or his fair face, or his peaceful manner. His light hair and dark eyes created an unguarded impression. People trusted him— _especially_ the people he hated.

                “Alright,” Alex started, taking a seat on the carpeted floor among the others, “We were assigned France’s part in the Renaissance, right?” His teammates nodded in response, rather sullenly, as they were already noticeably bored of the subject. Alex pressed on. “Then I think we should use _Scapin the Schemer_ as our reference—that's my favorite of Moliere’s works.” His partners stared blankly at him.

                “Uh, sure,” Salma finally replied after a long, hesitant pause.

 

                The research did not take long to conduct, even though Alex was the only person contributing anything to the project. He grudgingly adjusted to the situation, doubling his efforts to account for his partners, working on behalf of all three of them. He concluded that he wouldn’t trust them to help him with the project anyway. Salma and Will merely sat on the floor, exchanging messages with the hundreds of people they were connected with through their many social media sites.

                William groaned with superficial exasperation as a notification appeared on his phone, the large text reading “Geometry Test 4th Period”. “I totally forgot to study,” he whined, as if that hadn’t been the result of a conscious decision he’d made to ignore his schoolwork. Alex fought the urge to shoot him a nasty glare.

                “Ohh, that test is totally gonna suck ass,” Salma complained, her high-pitched, frustrating voice seeming to exceed expectations, reaching a whole new octave. “I’m not studying for it, though. Mr. Ulmer is always a pushover when it comes to grades, anyway.”

                William nodded in agreement. “Yeah, you can always count on being able to choke a ‘C’ out of him for an assignment you didn’t even do.” Salma chortled scornfully.

                “You hear those rumors that’ve been going around about him?”

                “No, what?” William asked curiously, his interest clearly peaked. Alex had paused from where he was with the PowerPoint by now and was craning his neck to listen in on the conversation; Mr. Ulmer was one of his favorite teachers, and he felt obligated to know whenever someone was being an asshole to him.

                “Okay,” Salma started excitedly, eyes lit with interest, “so you know Mr. Donowitz, the Drama teacher?” William nodded. “Well, everyone’s been talking about him—saying he’s been fucking Mr. Ulmer.” She shuddered, clearly disgusted.

                “What?! Did someone see them going at it or something?” William asked, intrigued.

                “No, but they act that way around each other…” She shuddered again. “It’s just so… uncivilized, you know? Fags like that need to be treated like they were back in the old days. What they have—It’s a disease. They just don’t… function the way we do.” Her face was wrinkled into an expression of contempt, and William’s face matched hers just as well.

                “Ugh, yeah. I don’t feel safe around people like that. I don’t want to be raped by one of those cock-sucking freaks,” he said with an obnoxious chortle.

                At this point, Alexander’s face was red, flushed with heated disdain. “I’ll be right back,” he choked, his voice almost giving out. He had managed to keep his anger suppressed sufficiently enough, though, and henceforth made his way to where Mr. Hicox was, standing over another group, critiquing their work. “Mr. Hicox?” Alex cleared his throat to catch his teacher’s attention. “Would it be alright if I went outside for a few minutes?”

                Archie Hicox turned his back on the Kabuki Theatre group to face Alex, his face unsuspecting. “Why, of course, my dear boy. But what is troubling you?” he asked, studying Alex’s outraged expression. Alex stumbled over his words, unsure of how to respond.

                “Oh, I—uh—just—…” Alex stared at his feet for a moment before responding, feeling the blood rush to his face as he replayed Salma’s words in his head, over and over again. “I’m just feeling a little light-headed is all. I think it’s the, er, spray paint the tech students were using in here last period,” he explained, trying to make his voice sound natural, “and I feel like some fresh air will make me feel better.”

                Mr. Hicox eyed him suspiciously, knowing full well what the truth of the matter was by now. “Understood. First, though, I must write you a pass. It will take but a minute,” he said breezily, stepping down from the stage onto one of the poorly-built, three-boarded stairs a tech student had constructed last year. The thinly cut wood planks were now strained and protested against even Mr. Hicox’s modest weight. Archie grabbed a blue pad of hall passes from his desk at the foot of the shabby stairs and filled one of the slips out before tearing it from the stack and handing it to Alex. “Here you go,” he said, much too jovially, with one of his wide smiles. “Just hurry on back in, oh, ten minutes?” he said, glancing at his watch. Alex, nodded, already turning away from Mr. Hicox and walking down the aisle toward the doors that led outside the theatre.

                “Yes, Mr. Hicox, thank you,” he called distractedly over his shoulder, eyes skimming over the note. He pushed open the double doors that led to a path behind the music building, turned left, and travelled only a few long paces before he reached the red door to the Drama classroom, which was located in a small building connected to the auditorium by a door in the back of the Green Room. He pushed the door open slowly and peaked into the dimly lit classroom, wanting to be sure there weren’t any rehearsals going on at the moment. Much to Alex’s relief, however, all of the students were seated on the floor, broken up into tightly knit groups of three, only speaking amongst themselves, while Mr. Donowitz was seated at his desk, his stress-haunted face illuminated by the computer screen. Mr. Donowitz glanced up upon Alex’s entrance and greeted him almost immediately, though his voice didn’t have its usual warmth to it.

                “Alex, hey, come in,” Donny said, sounding surprised by Alex’s arrival. He obeyed, closing the door behind him and swiftly making his way to the Drama instructor’s desk. Donny stood up to welcome him, as usual, though his posture was more compromised than normal. Alex admired his outfit—dark trousers, vest, and jacket, accompanied by a crisp white Oxford shirt underneath and an elegant ruby bowtie at his throat, all tied together with shining black shoes and a leather belt. He always dressed like this, and he always wore his hair neatly slicked back and arranged perfectly. Today, however, something was missing. Mr. Donowitz always wore a warm, genuine smile on his face. And, now, for some reason, that was missing. Sure, he was smiling—but it was forced, and didn’t hold its usual confidence and dignity. Alex could tell. Something was bothering Donny that left his face pale and his hair limp.

                “Mr. Donowitz, are you alright?” Alexander couldn’t help but ask, his voice low—as this didn’t concern anyone else in the room.

                “Of course,” Donny said, smiling wider as if to confirm, just barely showing off his pristine teeth. “You coming from Archie’s class?”

                Alex nodded. “Yeah… I just needed a break, you know? From those… those people.” Alex knew Donny would understand, and the two of them _did_ seem to have a mutual understanding with that sort of thing. “Um, but if you’re busy, I can go.”

                “No, no, it’s fine.” Donny waved his hand dismissively. “Just catching up on emails.” What he really meant, however, was that he and Omar were currently engaged in a very grave conversation which took place on his email account, regarding the email which Dr. Hitler had sent out earlier that day. Consequently, Omar was having trouble dealing with what the email suggested and, as much as Donny wanted to comfort Omar, he was glad that Alex had intervened when he did, else he may have started crying. Besides, it was more appropriate to help his friend in person instead of through emails.

                Despite the situation at hand, Omar was not a needy person—not in the least. The distress that Donny was trying to ease was something he could just sense, even in the hastily-typed messages; something that was not easily detected by anyone else other than him. In fact, Donny had concluded after a few years’ experience with Omar that _that, there, is the problem_ : Omar never mentioned when something was wrong, and he never stood up for himself, a quality that hadn’t exactly been useful in the few months prior to that time, what with the new management and all. Not to mention, the students—the majority of which were jaundice _pigs_ who openly spoke their unrighteous opinions to no end. Each day was a struggle for him, even more so than it was for the other teachers, because he refused to do anything about those students who caused him so much trouble. And the only thing getting him up in the morning was Donny—a privilege that may very well be taken from him soon.

                Alexander was well aware that Donny was in no state to engage in casual small talk. He checked his watch with the sole purpose of adding credibility to his next statement: “I should probably leave anyway. Didn’t realize how little time I had in here,” he mumbled.

                “Yes, yes, okay, then get back to class Alex.” Mr. Donowitz paused for a moment before going on with his voice lowered. “And thanks for checking in.” Gently, he extended a hand to squeeze Alex’s shoulder comfortingly, before turning him around, looking straight at the door.

                Alex grudgingly returned to the Theatre building, bracing himself for another thirty minutes of enduring Salma and William.

 

                Donny and Omar were tense with anticipation, walking briskly in the direction of Aldo’s classroom. They had deserted their classrooms to meet each other in the courtyard as soon as the final bell rang, and Omar couldn’t have left to meet Donny sooner. He had been so desperate, all day, just to see Donny, and to finally be out of his classroom. As soon as he was with Donny, everything around them just seemed to melt away.

                Genève and Gustave were just exiting Mr. Raine’s room when Donny and Omar approached. They exchanged glances and curt nods, but nothing was said. Nothing _needed_ to be said between them. Just like that, the students continued down the empty hallway, and Donny and Omar neared Aldo’s classroom. Donny rapped on the door briskly and stepped back to cast a sidelong glance at Omar, quickly registering that the shorter man’s fingers were trembling by his sides restlessly.

                “Hey,” Donny said softly, taking Omar’s hand in his own in efforts to comfort or reassure him in some way. “We’re gonna figure this out, okay?” he said with a genuine look in his eyes. “Everything’s gonna work out in the end.”

                Omar released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding up until that point. Breathing didn’t seem to come naturally until Donny was around.

                As soon as the door opened, however, the two of them hastily pulled their hands away from each other, awkwardly shifting apart. Aldo peaked out through the cracked door, grunted an acknowledgement to the two of them, and ushered them into the room where, surprisingly enough, three other teachers were gathered: Officer Stiglitz, Mr. Utivich, and Mr. Sakowitz.

                “Anyone else coming?” he queried, leading Omar to a seat next to Utivich.

                “Yep, we got Wicki an’ Hirschberg en route as we speak,” Aldo replied, making his way to the front of the room. It only then occurred to Donny that he had no clue as to what everyone else was doing there, or why Aldo had invited them.

                “What’s this little gathering for, anyway?” he asked Aldo, having to raise his voice over everyone else in the room, who murmured amongst themselves. Aldo raised his eyebrows as if amused.

                “Why’re _you_ here, son?”

                Donny knew the question to be rhetorical and nodded slightly in response. Not one minute later, Wilhelm and Gerold arrived, bursting hurriedly into the room and locking it behind them as if they’d just been chased through the halls by a dog. They apologized profusely until Aldo finally waved them off, before awkwardly going to find their seats, Wicki sitting next to Stiglitz and Hirschberg settling beside Sakowitz.

                “Now,” Aldo finally began, hoisting himself onto the large desk in the front of his classroom, “I think we can all agree on one thing: Dr. Hitler and that ass-kissing little squad of his have got to be taken care of.” Everyone seemed to concur with that statement, smiling contently and exchanging approving glances with each other. Wilhelm whispered something in Hugo’s ear, which he did multiple times throughout the meeting.

                “So, here’s what I propose to y’all,” Aldo began, clenching his jaw as he gathered his thoughts. The words that would soon come out of his mouth may have been the most far-flung shit ever spoken of among a group of teachers.

                Aldo proceeded to propose a pretty understandable plan—however ridiculous it was. He offered a not-so-intricate framework for this so-called “plan” and, though it was very vague, there seemed to be a mutual understanding between everyone in the room; every teacher seemed to know exactly what their role would be in this scheme.

                Again, the plan was very simple: the teachers would act as though they sided with Hitler in his many prejudice ideologies in order to obtain information on all of Hitler’s plans and to get on his good side in case they needed him held at a disadvantage. Then, they could work from the inside in order to slowly regain their control over the school—after all, anyone would be better as a principal than Dr. Hitler.

                The only person who refused at first to cooperate with the plan was Officer Stiglitz, who doubted he could get along with those Krauts for even a moment—he was silenced, though, when Wilhelm elbowed him roughly in the ribcage (though this hurt Wicki a lot more than it hurt Hugo, due to the many layers of Kevlar—not to mention the bulletproof vest). He resulted to sulking in silence as Aldo relayed the rest of the plan, obviously not feeling too enthusiastic about the whole plot.

                At one point, when they all gained the trust of the Nazis, they would revolt, take the school for themselves, and right any wrongs they could manage. Aldo was very vague about exactly how they would make ends meet with this part of their “strategy”; he only said that they would, that they _had to_ pull this off, no matter what happened along the way, or who got hurt (if anyone). Because, as he said, there was a bigger picture to see—this wasn’t just for them, and none of what was happening had been at their expense in the first place. This was for the students, and nothing more.

                “Now, if there are there any questions or _reasonable_ concerns, see me up front,” Aldo barked assertively, slipping down from the counter and settling in the chair at his desk. Mr. Utivich was the only one to pick his way to the front, while all the other teachers filed out; he looked just as perturbed as Donny.

                “Aldo.” Smithson anxiously shifted what little weight he had to his other leg, appearing significantly smaller than when Aldo had seen him last; pants that had fit him two weeks ago were now held up desperately by a belt, and, if his shirt wasn’t tucked in, it would probably end at his knees. “My class…” he sighed, frustrated at his sudden incapability to speak, and scratched his nose, his fingers trembling nervously. “Well—I mean—all of our classes,” he stammered, eyes drifting to his feet, “they’re—the students, rather—they’re merciless, you know?” he blurted, feeling as though every word he tried to cough up somehow got caught in his throat along the way. “I mean—not Gustave, or Genève, or Rivka, or Alex.” He felt out of breath at this point. “They get tortured, _every day._ I—I’ve seen it.”

                Aldo eyed Smithson with a _mostly_ unreadable expression—although, there was a flash of what resembled pity in his eyes as he studied Utivich. He knew all too well that the four said students were not the only ones being tortured. He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, nodding in understanding. “Just put up with their shit as long as you can, alright? An’ if things start gettin’ ugly, you come to me, an’ I’ll deal with it. Understand?”

                “Okay,” Utivich said, with a tinge of uncertainty in his voice. He wasn’t all too confident about Aldo’s words of advice, but he didn’t want to bother him any longer either. “I understand, Aldo. Um, thanks.” And with that, he awkwardly turned on his heel and left the room, the familiar feeling of hopelessness washing over him once again as he heard the door shut behind him.

                         

                Henceforth from that meeting, the group decided that they would stick together as much as possible, in order to avoid any unwanted trouble—and to, subsequently, distance themselves as much as they could from the Nazis. The group seemed to view Hitler’s deficiency in moral value as contagious; he was infected with the most feared and fatal virus, and the seven teachers (and Officer Stiglitz) weren’t looking to catch it from any of the Nazis that lurked the hallways.

                On this day, the group met in Aldo’s classroom for lunch, per his orders. It had become a common location for their meetings, of which two more had taken place since the first. They headed to Mr. Raine’s room as soon as the bell rang, not wanting to waste another minute with the (mostly) Nazi-advocating students. Lunch had become something the teachers and Stiglitz had actually come to look forward to every day, what with the meetings and the “plotting for revenge”. They’d found something to be hopeful for and have faith in at last.

                Smithson Utivich was likely the most intelligent of the group members, having his PhD in English literature (which had been his passion since youth) and being fluent in three languages. Everyone around him was oblivious to these things, though, and he was regarded as the type of person who was just barely acknowledged. He was nothing special or noticeable, like Donny or Aldo, and he didn’t have a distinct attitude or… well, anything. Not that anyone else was aware of, anyway. He didn’t tend to make friends very well, and he wasn’t one to put himself out there. Quite frankly, the idea of friendship, or any other relationship for that matter, seemed alien to him. And he didn’t like things he was unsure of.

                Smithson came from a long line of Jews and could trace his lineage back to Romania. He had lived a fairly average life—again, nothing spectacular or note-worthy—that is, up until the point where his family had become estranged from him. His father, mother, and brother seemed to fade with all of his other memories, seemingly just as distant as his ninth birthday; and just as irrelevant. It had been sixteen years since they’d last spoken, but he barely noticed once he got a job as a teacher—a worthy and sufficient distraction.

                Though Utivich considered most of the teachers in the group as his friends, he wasn’t very close to any one of them—or anyone else, for that matter. However, that being said, that day he did engage in minimal conversation with Wilhelm Wicki and Hugo Stiglitz. Not that they spoke of anything in particular; the topics were irrelevant to the plan or their lesson plans, but it was a nice distraction from certain prevalent stressors. Utivich learned that Wicki was an admirer of certain authors that he was rather fond of as well—this was probably the most he had ever related to someone in his life.

                About fifteen minutes into their lunch hour, everyone started putting away what remained of their lunches and carried on with their conversations, talking amongst themselves in their respective groups. Utivich was still sitting with Wilhelm, who seemed to register that Utivich hadn’t eaten anything. He must have looked awkward and ridiculous, sitting there while everyone else ate, staring down at his feet with a flustered expression. Wicki called Smithson out after a minute of silence between conversations, prompting him about whether he’d brought a lunch. Utivich stared at Wilhelm for a moment, making an effort not to seem too perturbed as he thought of a believable thing to say in response.

                “Uh, yeah—no,” he stammered, still caught off guard by the sudden question. He usually had some kind of excuse prepared in case of a situation like this, but he hadn’t planned on talking to anyone besides his students that day and wasn’t used to things not going according to planned. “I, uh—I’m still full from this morning,” he lied.

                “Oh? What did you eat?” Wilhelm countered, in the most light-hearted way possible. Utivich was beginning to question his intentions at this point, wondering whether he was suspicious of him. And, in the long pause that Smithson had taken to let these frantic thoughts run through his head, as well as the uncertainty in how to come up with a further credible rebuttal, he gave up. He knew he’d already lost his chance due to his spectacular failure, and resulted in rubbing his face absently, saying nothing and waiting for Wicki to respond to his silence.

                “Dear friend, you must eat _something,_ ” Wilhelm reasoned, lowering his voice so as not to embarrass him.

                “I’m fine, Wilhelm. I don’t feel too great today, food would just—”

                As he tried to politely decline, though, Wicki had already taken some extra food out from his bag, holding it out in front of Utivich rather adamantly.

                “Here, this shouldn’t upset your stomach,” he offered. “It’s just this bread that my mother used to make. Well, it’s her recipe, anyway. I could always eat this when I was ill.” Smithson still tried to protest, but Wicki said nothing—his outstretched hand seemed to speak for him. He continued to hold the bread out to Smithson until he finally took it from him, muttering a disgruntled “thanks” under his breath as he gingerly unwrapped the bread.

                He stared at the bread in his hands, remorse washing over him. However, seeing that he was backed into a corner and there weren’t any more chances of escape, he reluctantly bit into it, fighting the urge to spit the food out as he slowly ate it. Wicki nodded with contentment once Utivich was done, probably pleased with himself for doing his good deed for the day.

                “You see? Don’t you feel better?”

                “Mhm,” Utivich lied, clearing his throat anxiously. “Uh, would you please excuse me for a second?” he mumbled, rising to his feet shakily, choosing to ignore Wicki’s confused expression as he turned and stalked out of the classroom, immediately making a beeline for the bathrooms, which were conveniently located across the hall. He hastily pushed one of the stall doors open and fumbled with the latch for a long moment before finally managing to lock it with an abrupt _click._

                At last, he could allow himself to lose his balance, leaning against the wall for support just as black spots began to cloud his eyes, his vision swimming as it always did just before things like this happened.

                And it was over as soon as it had started—luckily, he hadn’t had much in his system throughout the day, so there wasn’t much to vomit this time. As he had predicted, he threw up everything he’d just eaten, then proceeded through a brief phase of dry-heaving—which was then followed by a coughing fit, which made his eyes water and left them burning; and they would probably sting like that for the remainder of the day.

                If he followed through with this same process that always occurred when he ate something after a few days of nothing—vomiting, dry-heaving, coughing—the next and final element would be the tears, due to his utter frustration with himself over… well, just being this way in general. He refused to let himself resort to crying in the school bathroom though, and instead just wiped his already-streaming eyes and flushed the toilet. Besides, he didn’t feel like he could cry even if he tried, as a result of his exhaustion. His body was so worn down that he could barely sustain enough energy to walk and breathe normally. He may have passed out then and there, if not for the brisk knock on the stall door that had snapped him back into reality, startling him to near alertness.

                “Are you alright in there?” the person asked, concern evident in his voice, of which Utivich could detect a very thick German accent. Still half-stunned from the sudden intrusion, he quickly unlocked and opened the door to face Hans Landa, who he knew to be the guidance counselor, holding a clipboard under his left arm.

                “Yes, I’m—” Utivich’s voice was cut short by another harrowing cough, which made him feel even closer to passing out than before. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, his nasally voice barely audible.

                Mr. Landa felt a pang of condolement upon seeing the state of the young man before him—his shivering frame, his ashen face, and his bloodshot eyes all invoked his concern for the boy; and, though he’d only directly spoken with Utivich twice, seeing him like this gave Hans a sudden, inexplicable, urge to protect him as best as he could.

                “You look extremely ill, Mr. Utivich. It sounded as though you were vomiting… I suggest you see the medic,” Hans said, a tinge of consternation in his voice. He knew the medic probably couldn’t do anything worthwhile for Utivich, but he wanted to say something to address the situation.

                As if he had been gifted with the ability to read Landa’s thoughts, Utivich replied, “There’s nothing he can do to help, Mr. Landa. It’s probably just a stomach bug, or something.” His voice was still gruff, and his throat burned.

                “You came to work with a potentially contagious sickness?” Hans countered, though he regretted asking the question as soon as the words spilled out of his mouth.

                _Why does everyone insist on interrogating me?_ Smithson, once again put on the spot, broke under the pressure—the dam behind his eyes that had been holding back his tears collapsed, and its contents were now streaming down his face. He was crying.

                Landa’s impulse took over, and he left his clipboard laying on the sink so he could carefully pull Utivich into a hesitant yet comforting embrace. The strangest part was: Utivich didn’t even make an attempt at resisting, despite his confusion. There was an indescribable feeling of trust that had formed upon the action—a trust that Smithson had once held for his father, before what had happened.

                 Hans closed his eyes and, for a very brief moment, was able to envision that the son that he had lost was now returned to him, living and breathing and tangible—the one thing in this world he had been responsible for keeping alive and happy. But the feeling faded as soon as he snapped his eyes open again and returned back to reality. He inhaled deeply and pulled away, embarrassed of his sudden display of affection. They were just acquaintances. He looked down at Smithson, who was still trembling pathetically. He tried not to give his weakness away, though. Hans could see that.

                “I am sorry to have caused you such grief,” he apologized, choosing his words carefully out of fear of upsetting Smithson any further. He knew it wasn’t his place to intrude, but he couldn’t help but be worried.

                “It’s fine,” Smithson rasped, hugging himself—as if to replace Mr. Landa—in a half-hearted attempt to still himself. He knew, however, that it was hopeless; that he would continue to shiver like this until the feeling of lightheadedness passed—and it hadn’t. “Why…?” Utivich struggled to find the right words, his mind still clouded. He looked up at Hans cautiously, with a flash of recognition in his eyes. “You aren’t like them.”

                “Like whom?” Hans inquired curiously, cocking his head; he had to strain his ears in order to decipher Smithson’s quivering, timid voice.

                “Like—Like Hitler, or Goebbels, or Zoller,” he rambled helplessly, still finding it hard to think or speak. He drew in a shaky breath, his legs still wobbling ever so slightly. Hans half-smiled in response, taking Utivich’s words as a heartfelt complement.

                “And, um…” Smithson continued, daring to ask the question that had lurked at the back of his mind since this encounter first began: “Why do you even care?” The question spilled from his mouth abruptly, and he wanted to take it back as soon as he heard himself say it. He must have sounded foolish.

                “Well, dear boy—it’s my job,” Landa replied dismissively, indicating to the badge that hung from his lanyard. “And you… well, you remind me of someone,” he added, trying to sound as nonchalant as he could. Utivich seemed to understand what he meant, though, regardless of the ambiguity in his words, and he related to what Landa had said in that aspect—well, what he thought he meant by it, anyway.

                “Uh, well, anyway… I have to go deal with—” he pointed in the general direction of Aldo’s classroom, and Landa quickly realized what he meant and quickly nodded, waving a hand dismissively.

                “Ah, but of course, I apologize for any trouble I caused you,” he began to say, ready to let Utivich go along on his merry way; he came dangerously close to letting this slide, picking up his clipboard from the sink, before he suddenly said, “But surely you don’t plan on returning to your work in the state you’re in?” Smithson paused for a long moment, allowing for silence to ensue between them.

                “I do it all the time, Mr. Landa,” was all he said, before turning his back to leave for the history classroom. He muttered a short “thank you” under his breath before deserting Hans to rejoin his comrades. The door to the history classroom made a disturbing scratching sound when it closed behind Smithson, leaving Hans standing, awash in near despondency, in the doorway to the bathrooms.

                _But maybe,_ he thought, hopeful for once in a long time, _maybe I’ll be able to save someone this time._


	4. Chapter 4

                 Rivka felt the all-too-familiar sensation of dread as she walked down the hall towards the guidance counselor’s office. She knew she wasn’t in trouble—and she knew what she was being pulled out of class for, as well. The last time she’d seen Mr. Landa, he’d been the first to tell her about Naomi. And now, though she didn’t know the specific purpose of this meeting, she could make a fair guess that it had to do with her sister’s suicide.

                Each step towards the end of the foreboding hallway brought her closer to that day at the beginning of the year. She had been in that same part of the hallway that dreary Tuesday, yet she hadn’t the slightest bit of fear or suspicion. Today, however, her feet felt heavy, as if they refused to bring her to the office. When she finally managed to trudge her way to the entrance, her fingers trembled as she grasped the doorknob to Mr. Landa’s office. The icy metal sent a chill up her spine, and she felt like the air around her had been stripped of oxygen. She felt like she was suffocating.

                She finally pushed the door open, her heart leaping to her throat as a gust of colder air hit her face. The air in the office seemed even thinner, stealing from her any of the remaining oxygen that was left in her lungs; she was certain that her lips had turned blue.

                Mr. Landa, as always, welcomed her with a jovial expression, foreshadowed with pity. “Hello, Rivka,” he greeted with a wide, fake smile.

                “I assume you’re quite grateful for my summoning; it seems I picked just the right class to pull you out of, no?” She smiled weakly in response. “Please, sit,” he went on, gesturing to the seat facing his desk. Rivka ducked her head and sat down hesitantly, worrying at the sleeves of her jacket. She looked up at him after a moment to find him studying her, his face expressionless for a moment—save for that tinge of pity. It didn’t last long, though.

                “You probably know why I called you in here today, so I will gladly skip the formalities,” he said with a slight, forced smile. “Now, I just need some details about… your sister…” He glanced at some paperwork on his desk, avoiding Rivka’s gaze. “… just anything you know in regards to her… suicide.” She could tell that he chose every word carefully, with such an unreadable, yet tense, tone in his voice. Talking about this wasn’t difficult for him, of course…

                “Did she ever say anything prior to her death that suggested this type of behavior?” he prompted, finally looking up from the report. Rivka noticed now that his jaw was clenched.

                “No,” she said dully, “not directly.”

                “Well, how do you mean?”

                Rivka sighed, her eyes fixed on the report on Mr. Landa’s desk. She remembered the witness statement that another student had filled out—the girl who found Naomi in the bathroom in the Third Building. Of course Naomi had said some suspicious things; scary things. But that, to Rivka, was confidential.

                “She did mention some people who were… cruel to her,” Rivka said, making an effort to sound indifferent. Her hands were shaking slightly, and her foot tapped against the carpet rapidly.

                “Did she give any specific names?” he asked her, pressing his pen against the paper. Rivka nodded, and he raised his eyebrows questioningly, prompting her to continue.

                “She mostly just mentioned some of her teachers: Mr. Rachtmann and Mr. Goebbels…” Mr. Landa nodded in acknowledgement and wrote the two names down.

                “Did she give any context on the matter?” he asked, glancing up briefly at Rivka. “Did she mention anything they did or said…?” Rivka shrugged and decided to fixate her attention on the wall to her right, wishing she could vanish as Naomi had.

                 “They terrorized her,” she said shortly, her voice rough. “How much detail do you need?” She was vaguely aware of her voice gradually raising to an inappropriate volume, but Mr. Landa didn’t seem exactly displeased by her outburst; he seemed like he had been expecting it to happen, almost anticipating it. He smiled, sadly and sympathetically, and set his pen down on the table with a resigned sigh.

                “I understand you didn’t come to class today in high hopes that we’d be having this conversation, Rivka; I wasn’t expecting this to be pleasant either, but, admittedly, it is necessary in order to fill out this report. And maybe,” he added subtly, “if what you tell me about Mr. Rachtmann and Mr. Goebbels happens to be significantly serious, I could report them for what they did.” Rivka turned to eye Mr. Landa hopefully, searching his face to find some actual sincerity behind his genial expression. She hesitantly conceded.

                “Well, it wasn’t anything serious; mostly just words, from what I understand,” she started hastily.

                “Well, words go a long way,” Mr. Landa, pointed out.

                “Anyway, most of it was about her being Jewish.” Rivka noticed Mr. Landa stiffen slightly, but kept her eyes trained on the ground. “Well, you know how that goes…” she said shortly. She wasn’t sure she could trust him to be prejudice—she wasn’t sure where he stood on the matter, and she didn’t want to find out the hard way.

                Mr. Landa didn’t respond for a few seconds, though time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Rivka finally looked up from the carpeted floor to make eye contact with him, taking note of his guarded expression. He glanced at the report again.

                “Well, thank you for sharing this with me,” he said quickly, standing up and showing her out the door. “We’ll be sure to record anything significant we find in the investigation.” He was talking hurriedly, his words blending together in one run-on sentence. He refused to meet her gaze. Something was off.

                   “We?” she asked, studying his face, searching for clues—or for that same sincerity that she’d seen just minutes before. He didn’t reply to her. He just ushered her out the door and mumbled a quick “goodbye, have a nice day”, and left her out in the deserted hallway.


	5. Chapter 5

                Hans Landa had had very, _very_ mixed emotions with the situation at hand, what with Dr. Hitler’s schemes and such. On one hand, he could scarcely pay rent while still having money for food and other necessities, and he could easily get a promotion if he became an advocate for Dr. Hitler. On the other hand, he despised everything the principal stood for, and he didn’t want to completely abandon his dignity.

                He’d made one promise to himself in his life—that he would never become his father. He didn’t want to give in now, and throw his entire moral value away. Moreover, he didn’t want to cause anyone to suffer just to pay for _his_ own well-being. No, he didn’t believe himself to be worth quite that much.

                His father was, to say the least, a horrible person. Adalgar Landa was, among many awful things, an anti-Semite, a racist, and a homophobe—which is a given, considering the time period, but he was quite vicious about these prejudices. So much so, that he created a legacy for himself, regarding these prejudiced tendencies. And Hans did not want to fulfill that legacy.

                He remembered his father telling him that anyone who was different from them would go to hell. He remembered being told that they were part of a “supreme race”, and that they were superior to all other beings. He was told that Jews were liars, that gay people were immoral, and that black people were born to clean up after their masters.

                And, upon making friends with some of these people himself, and realizing he’d been raised on lies, he made that promise. And he was _so afraid_ to get as close as he currently was to breaking that promise. But, desperate times called for desperate measures, so he began to compromise with himself.

                Well, that was until that cold, foggy morning, when he finally came to his senses and realized the gravity of the situation.

                It was 5:26 in the morning, and he, as always, was the first one to make his way out of the residential building, as he had lots of work to do—again, as always. He could never sleep in the morning, anyway, and it would be foolish to lay in bed and waste his wakefulness staring at the ceiling.

                So, there he was, walking down the path that connected the residential buildings to the school buildings—when he heard someone yelling from the field beyond the campus.

                He stopped in his tracks immediately upon hearing the yelling and stood there for a moment, straining his ears.

                The yelling continued for a few more moments, before the voice died away. Hans decided that the voice belonged to a person. A man. He continued walking, his pace more frantic now, as he made his way to the end of the path in long, quick strides. He then took a left turn, walking straight into the grass, making a beeline toward where the sound had come from. The yelling was louder now, and Hans could just barely make out the outline of a figure, slumped against the fence that lined the outskirts of the campus. The voice was quiet once again, and the person’s head was hanging in defeat.

                Hans broke out into a run to close the distance between him and the person on the fence. There weren’t any lights out here, and the sun had not even come close to emerging from behind the trees, so Hans couldn’t quite make out the person’s face at this distance. He could infer, however, that it was a teacher, by the look of him.

                He finally reached the man’s side, and shook his shoulder carefully to get a reaction from him. Immediately, a pained groan escaped the man’s bloodied lips, and his head lolled sideways. He had his hands behind his back, tied to the fence. Hans recognized him as Omar Ulmer, one of the math teachers.

                “Oh my God,” he muttered under his breath, finally seeing the full extent of the man’s injuries. Half of his face was completely bruised, one of his eyes were swollen shut, and his hair was coated in blood. Fresh blood. 

                “Omar,” he said, shaking his shoulder gently again, encouraging him to open his eyes. Ulmer conceded, opening at least one of his eyes to meet Landa’s worried stare. “Who did this to you?” he asked, trying to sound calm. As he waited for a reply, he reached behind Omar to untie the rope that bound his wrists to the fencepost.

                “The kids,” he heard Omar mumble under his breath. He finally untied the rope and carefully unraveled it from Omar’s wrists, revealing deep, red lines in where the rope had rubbed away at his skin mercilessly. He pulled away to study Omar’s bloodied face.

                “How long have you been out here?” he asked gently, though he was starting to panic. He pulled out his phone, noticing more blood dripping from Omar’s head.

                “Since midnight… What time is it?” he asked dazedly, gripping his wrists with a wince of pain.

                “Five-thirty,” Hans said distractedly, dialing 1-1-2 in his phone frantically and standing up from where he’d been, crouched next to Omar, as he relayed the emergency and their location.

 

                _Hans was seated in his living room, which was currently being occupied by virtually the entire Viennese police force. His body was rigid and he was staring intently at his phone, which seemed to stare back at him forebodingly, sitting on the coffee table. He was waiting—as was the everyone else in the room—for a call. He hoped and prayed for that dreaded phone to ring, because it could very well be an indication of his son’s well-being._

_They sat there for hours. The police were messing with their tracking devices, fiddling with their special wires—all the things that would be proven helpful soon enough. Or so they said. And, when the phone did ring, it took Hans six seconds to register that his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him and pick it up._

_“Servus? Ist jemand da?” he said. His hands were shaking, but he gripped the phone tightly, holding it close to his ear. Nobody answered him, but he could hear someone talking under their breath in the background. “Wo ist er?” he asked, raising his voice. Could they hear him? Was there a bad connection? Were the police listening to the call as well? Had he gone deaf?_

_The only thing he could make out from the other end was the clear sound of a gunshot. Then, once again, there was silence._

                Hans kneeled in front of Omar, who remained slouched against the fencepost, and pulled him toward himself to inspect the top of his head, where more blood continued to leak from. He rooted around in Omar’s hair, causing him to wince, in order to make sure there was nothing serious that he needed to know about. “What hurts?” he asked as calmly as possible, though his voice quivered in panic.

                “My shoulder, my wrists, my head… my ribs,” he said miserably—and rightfully so.

                “What hurts the most?” he asked, barely withholding a panicked gasp upon finding a deep gash on the side of Omar’s head, where most of the blood had predictably come from.

                “I think you just found it,” Omar said shakily. “How bad does it look?”

                “Uh, well, not good,” he said honestly. Seeing Omar’s fear-stricken expression, he quickly added, “But nothing too serious. Do you want me to call anyone?” Omar nodded weakly.

                “Yeah. Donny… and Aldo,” he said, faltering a bit out of carelessness when referring to the latter. Omar gave Hans their numbers and he quickly called them and informed them of the situation at hand. Aldo seemed quite outraged, and Donny seemed mortified. Needless to say, the two Americans were there in a matter of two minutes.

               

                “What do you gotta say for yourself?” Aldo interrogated, grabbing Hans by his jacket collar as soon as he was within arm’s length. He yanked Landa closer until he was nearly breathing on his neck and pointed an accusatory finger in his face. As he went on heatedly about suspicious Nazis, Donny rushed over to Omar, falling at his knees in front of him and breaking down crying upon catching sight of what the students had done to him. It took a lot of explaining for Hans to calm the suspecting American down so that he could brief Donowitz on how long the ambulance was supposed to be, and all the known injuries: a busted lip, a fractured jaw, possibly a fractured rib, and the silver dollar-sized gash on the side of his head. Donny was on the threshold of hysterics, but he managed to keep it together for Omar’s sake. Aldo finally fell silent, standing by the fencepost with a watchful eye. A few minutes, later, just as the sky was brightening to a dull gray, the sirens could be heard.

                The bright lights caught Hans’ eye and he quickly ran over to the parking lot by the courtyard, meeting the ambulances and police cars halfway. He pointed the paramedics in the right direction and made a very vague statement to an officer. He felt guilty, and he wasn’t quite sure why. He felt like a child caught stealing. Maybe it was because of his prior thoughts on siding with Hitler. But, if the principal’s new arrangements weren’t what caused this incident, he wasn’t sure what else it could have been. He didn’t know Omar and Donny very well—he just knew the rumors that the students spread about him. And, considering the fact that the students were the ones who did this, and assuming the students who did it were the same ones who spread the rumors, he could guess exactly why they did it. And Hitler encouraged that behavior; he’d seen him encourage it. And that wrong.

                 And he would _never_ come that close to breaking his promise again.

               

                Donny fell to his knees at Omar’s feet, his brain not acknowledging the voices around him. “Oh my God—Omar—what the fuck happened??—What did they do to you? What the fuck?! Oh my God, Omar—” he rambled, though he could barely hear himself. Omar was barely conscious. There was blood everywhere. Donny felt like one of those characters in those shitty soap operas who had to identify the dead body of their relatives. Some shit like that. He couldn’t think straight, seeing Omar like this. He couldn’t stand it. He wanted to kill.

                He pulled Omar close to himself and cupped his face in his hands, his breath frantic and shaking. “Oh my God, Omar, how could I let this happen to you?” he sobbed. Omar offered him a weak, yet consoling smile.

                “Donny, this isn’t your fault. I’ll be fine.” His words were empty and hollow, and filled with pain. Landa would later inform him of Omar’s cracked jaw. Donny felt a wave of suffocating anger wash over him, leaving him blinded with rage.

                “Yes, it is,” he said helplessly, staring intensely into Omar’s eyes, looking for some sign of the usual charisma they held. He felt that same rage that burned a hole in his heart, and pulled away from Omar to pace around violently, thinking of ways he could get away with murder. “I’m going to kill them!” he screamed, angry tears streaming down his face. A shiver of anticipation ran up his spine as he remembered the baseball bat he always kept in his closet.

                Suddenly he felt firm hands gripping his shoulders, spinning him around. He met Aldo’s calm, yet guarded gaze, and shrunk beneath it, still trembling with contempt.

                “Son, you’re not killin’ anyone, okay?” Aldo paused for a moment, glancing over Donny’s tearstained face. “We got some cops comin’, you can talk to them. Alright?” Donny seethed, pulling away from Aldo’s otherwise comforting gesture, ignoring the fact that he really was cold and he really did need comfort at the moment.

                “That’s not enough,” Donny hissed, his enraged features morphing into a scowl. “No, Aldo, you don’t understand.” His voice was frantic, and his voice seemed to stumble over his words. “I need every _fucker_ in the building to come out here and _pay_ for what they did. They’re all so _evil! I hate this place and every fucker in this school!”_ His voice lowered and he resolved to muttering curses under his breath, his voice still compromised by sobs.

                Aldo grabbed Donny by his arm and pulled him closer to gain his full attention. “Donny, listen here—I don’t want you doin’ anything you’ll regret, alright? Just calm down. Omar needs _you_ more than you need to terrorize students.” That seemed to bring Donny to his senses, because he finally took a deep breath, pawed at his eyes, and nodded curtly to Aldo, before finally returning to Omar’s side, wrapping his arm around his shoulder to keep the injured man warm. Landa had gone down to talk to the officers, and the paramedics were on their way to gather Omar onto a stretcher.

                As Donny followed the paramedics to the ambulance, Aldo decided to talk to the police, just to figure out what they were going to do about what had just happened. He walked down to the parking lot where the vehicles were and tried to talk to one of the officers, but they only answered him in German, with confused expressions. _Fuck, why did I move to Germany?_

He concluded that whatever he had to ask them wasn’t their top priority at the moment, and he resorted to stepping out onto the curb, away from everyone else. He took a cigarette and lighter from his jacket pocket and lit the cigarette. _Holy shit, what a morning._

He turned around to glance over his shoulder when he though he heard footsteps passing by his spot on the curb. “Hey, Hans,” he said when he saw Landa—pronouncing his name like _‘Haanz’—_ gesturing for Hans to come sit next to him. He didn’t look over his shoulder again to see if the man had followed, because he could already hear the footsteps nearing him. Landa sat next to him on the curb and mumbled a quick “Hello”.

                “You want one?” Aldo asked after a moment, referring to the cigarette which was held loosely in his mouth. Hans paused for just a moment, looking back at Aldo with a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, before nodding with a resigned sigh. Aldo handed over the cigarette and waited until Hans had stuck it between his teeth and leant forward, before lighting it for him.

                “Thanks,” Hans mumbled.

                “Yeah, don’t mention it.”

                “Sorry about what happened…” Hans paused and glanced at Aldo. “You know it had nothing to do with me, right?”

                “Mhm.” Aldo cast Landa a sideways glance. “Just don’t know who to trust now, what with Hitler being the new principal,” he admitted after a moment. Hans hummed thoughtfully.

                “Indeed.”

                “You’re cryin’, ya know,” Aldo said humorously, without a trace of class. Hans hadn’t realized until just then, of course. “That’s how I know you had nothin’ to do with it. Not just ‘cause I trust ya.”

                “I’m not crying,” he scoffed. “You should get your eyes checked.”

                “Well, anyway… Listen here, Rhine Monkey,” Aldo said, throwing his cigarette onto the ground. “I don’t know about those kraut friends of yours who just suddenly decided to come run a fuckin’ dictatorship at this school, but I’ve been meaning to ask what the fuck is goin’ on. And I know you’ve been kissin’ Hitler’s ass since he started runnin’ the place here, so I’m gonna ask you _once_ , what you know about his plans.” His voice was low and commanding, and he inched closer to Hans in order to seem more intimidating.

                “I don’t know what you’re implying, Aldo.” Hans raised his eyebrows at Aldo in inquiry, acting oblivious, and Aldo just snorted in response, pulling away again.

                “That’s what I thought,” Raine huffed, heaving himself up from his seated position so he was looming over Hans. “So, you don’t know _anything?”_

                “Afraid not, Aldo,” he said, quite complacently.

                Aldo rolled his eyes and stepped on the cigarette on the ground. “You got a tear right here, by the way,” he said with a satisfied smirk, pointing to the space below his own left eye. And with that, he walked away, leaving an embarrassed Landa alone on the side of the street.


	6. Chapter 6

                It was the day after Omar was found, beaten and bloodied, at the fence. Alexander hadn’t taken it well, of course, as he’d already been worrying about the rumors about Donny and Omar before this incident. He knew he needed to talk to Mr. Donowitz about it, but he also knew that Donny was stressed about it as it was, and he didn’t want to make things worse. Besides, he didn’t have a doubt in his mind that Donny was already well aware of what the students said. He at least probably knew _enough._

                It had been a long day, Alex only just finding out about what had happened through Mr. Hicox. He found himself craving what he usually craved on days like these. Admittedly, he was well aware of the damage it did to his body and his mind. After all, he’d had his fair share of convulsions and panic attacks as a result of the LSD he found himself so frequently overdosing on. Nonetheless, he always came back for more. And Jerry, his dealer, always expected him to come on the same day of every week: Wednesday.

                Alexander knocked on Jerry’s door, rocking back on his heels nervously. Jerry was a junior, so his dorm room was on the second floor of the student residential building, along with all the other upperclassmen—juniors and seniors alike. Alex was scarcely caught in this area by anyone of notable authority, but he was still constantly paranoid of any unexpected encounter.

                The door creaked open with a horrendous scratching noise to reveal Jerry. As usual, Jerry was not wearing pants. Great.

                “Hello, _Piefke,_ ” Jerry greeted with a smug smile, using the usual nickname he had for Alex. Alexander scowled and pushed past Jerry into his shabby dorm room.

                “You got any more acid?” he asked anxiously, feeling on edge just bringing it up. He needed to forget about some of the shit going on with Omar and all that. He sat on Jerry’s bed and set his head in his hands, feeling his pulse quicken and hearing the blood roaring in his ears as a wave of anxiety engulfed him. He found it difficult to deal with all this worry, especially when it was compounded with hopelessness—knowing he couldn’t do anything to help or protect Omar, or anyone for that matter.

                “Aw, what’s the matter? Did you have another bad trip?” he asked with a mocking tone, to which Alex shook his head, no. A bad trip would be heaven right now—maybe, if he was lucky, he could even slip into a coma.

                “Calm down, _Piefke_ , I have more,” Jerry said after a minute with a laugh, though there was a tinge of awkwardness in his voice. The two were merely acquaintances, bound together, ever so unfortunately, by secrets. Jerry knew about Alexander’s dyslexia—something he made an effort to keep under the radar, and they both knew about each other’s drug abuse, naturally.

                “What’s wrong?” Jerry asked cautiously as he handed Alex some of the “cleverly designed” LSD paper, featuring a satirical cartoon that was otherwise not very attention-grabbing. But, drugs were drugs.

                “Thanks. Oh, umm…” Alex fiddled with the paper as he thought of what to say, ignoring his impulse to swallow the paper whole. “Did you hear about what happened to the geometry teacher, Mr. Ulmer?” he asked nonchalantly, turning the paper over and pretending to read the cartoon imprinted on it. He heard Jerry scoff and studied him out of the corner of his eye. Jerry was leaning against his desk, his arms crossed, looking right at Alex, scrutinizing him as he always did.

                “I heard about it, yes,” he muttered. “I don’t give a fuck about Ulmer, though, he’s _abschaum,_ ” he said, mumbling the last word under his breath with a menacing laugh. “Why do you ask, anyway? I think I know some people who were in on it.” He laughed again. “I heard he cried, like a _fickfehler._ ” Alex eyed Jerry with contempt. He didn’t need to know what he was saying to know it was all out of ill-will.

                “Who did it?” Alexander asked, his voice low and menacing. He shoved the paper in his mouth and waited for an answer, raising his eyebrows in question. Jerry only laughed.

                “Fine, _armleuchter,_ ” he snickered, “but don’t tell anyone I told you.” He waited until Alex conceded, nodding hesitantly, before he continued: “Their names are Volker Michalowski and Arndt Schwering,” he said.

                Alex looked up at Jerry, resisting the urge to let his face contort into a scowl. “Are they juniors as well?”

                “Uh, yeah. Though it wasn’t exactly an upperclassman’s job. As I said, he cried _wie eine Mistvieh._ ” An obnoxious snicker escaped his mouth again and Alex distracted himself by sucking on the paper. He was not nearly as amused as Jerry was with the thought of Mr. Ulmer being tied to a fence and beaten senseless, then left outside in the cold for six hours—without a coat, he might add.

                “Do you know what dorm rooms they’re in?” he asked casually through one side of his mouth, using the other to delicately chew on the paper.

                “Now Alex, what exactly are you plotting?” Jerry asked with a laugh, to which Alex simply rolled his eyes and gnawed more intensely on the paper, casting Jerry a sideways glare.

                “Nothing, Jerry, I just… I wanted to… whatever, I’ll just find them myself,” he scoffed, getting up and handing Jerry his money for the paper. “You better have some next week,” he added warningly, taking the paper out of his mouth to perform a mock salute before swinging the door open with that same horrendous scratching sound. He slammed it shut behind him and crossed the hallway to the other wall, sliding down it to sit, cross-legged, on the floor. Technically, he wasn’t allowed in this area, and there were people who occasionally patrolled the halls. But, quite frankly, he expected to be spending the night on that floor, finding those students. He vaguely knew their faces, of course, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to ask around. Besides, most of the people who did patrol this floor were his favorite teachers, and he could easily get away with murder on their watch.

                He must have been sitting there for another fourteen minutes, sucking on that paper until he could feel the already intense effects of the drug. He often experienced disturbing hallucinations, but it was a good distraction. And it was wonderful to not know the difference between what was and wasn’t real; there was something terribly poetic and existential about it all. Regardless of the paranoia and the convulsions and the panic attacks—at the end of the day, it was all fake; at the end of the day, it was all a dream.

                At one point, when he was on the threshold of his high, he finally decided to go look for whoever beat the shit out of Omar. He stood up a little too quickly and stumbled. He heard himself laugh, and realized his hearing was distorted and cloudy. The sounds from the outside world entered his brain through a filter, as if he was underwater. He tried to remember the names of the students as he wandered aimlessly through the hallways. _Vol… Volk… Eh, whatever. Schwering? Schwerig?..._ He tried to gather the names from his memory.

                He jumped when the sound of a door creaking open floated through the hallway, which suddenly appeared much to wide, a vast expanse of dark carpeting and brown doors that made raucous scratching sounds whenever you opened them. He stopped in his tracks and spun around, causing himself to stumble into one of the far-away walls. He glimpsed down the never-ending hallway and caught sight of a man in a leather coat, walking towards him, becoming taller and taller as he came closer to Alex.

                Alex stumbled back a little bit, scared that he would be run over by the tall figure, and felt himself falling back towards the ground for a moment, causing him to yell in surprise. But the figure reached down and grabbed his wrist. Alex looked up, his eyes wide, and recognized Aldo.

                “Oh, heyyy, Mr. Raine,” he mumbled, standing up straighter when he regained his footing. He tried to look natural, straightening his coat. His sense of touch seemed to kick in all of the sudden, and he realized his entire body was glazed with sweat—but he was so cold. He felt himself shivering violently. He smiled at Aldo, who suddenly bent down to get something from the ground.

                “This yours?” Aldo asked, his muted voice just barely making its way into Alexander’s ears. Alex looked at what Mr. Raine was holding in his hand—the LSD paper. _Whoops._

“Mine? No, sirrr,” Alex insisted, his voice quivering, crossing his arms and rocking back on his heels. Aldo crossed his arms, mirroring Alex’s movements, looking down at Alex with a guarded expression—but just a _tinge_ of visible disappointment.

                “Come on. You’re comin’ with me,” Aldo sighed, grabbing Alex’s arm and pulling him down the hallway. Alex stumbled after him, hanging on to his arm for support.

                “Where are we going?” he asked dazedly, on the verge of a hysterical laughing fit. His skin was crawling under his jacket, and he looked up at Aldo with apprehension and anxiety. “I’m not in trouble, am I?” he asked fearfully. Aldo said nothing.

                An undetermined amount of time later, Aldo pulled Alex into a room—God knows where, Alex had lost all sense of direction—and pushed him into a chair before sitting down in a desk that the chair faced, his arms crossed again. The LSD paper had been tossed onto the table.

                “Alex, what were you doing on the upperclassmen’s floor?” he asked casually, his voice sounding almost amused.

                “Lookin’ for the people who hurt Omar,” Alex replied distractedly, his eyes fixed on Aldo’s shoulder; there appeared to be something growing out of his collarbone. He was vaguely aware that it was a hallucination, of course.

                “Take your jacket off,” Aldo said next. Alexander shook his head fiercely.

                “I’m cold,” he argued, an edge to his voice.

                “You don’t look cold.”

                _“I’m cold,”_ Alex insisted again, his voice harsh. Mr. Raine studied him for a moment.

                “Alex, d’you know what this is?” he asked, gesturing to the paper. Of course he did.

                “Yes,” he replied reluctantly. He probably would have lied to anyone else; even Donny and Omar, out of fear of their disappointment. Aldo was the middle ground between them and Landa, though. Alex would never lie to him, but also wasn’t overly paranoid of what he thought of him.

                “Is it yours?”

                “Yes.” Alex’s fingers trembled and his mouth felt dry. He let out a shaky breath, his heart pounding in his throat.

                “Did you buy it?”

                “Yes.” He felt like he was going to throw up.

                “Well, why’d you do that?” Alex looked up at Mr. Raine but didn’t say anything. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Take your jacket off,” he repeated.

                “No, I'm _cold,_ ” Alex hissed, shivering and burrowing further into his coat. “Anyway, I found out who did it. Not that you care,” he said derisively. Mr. Raine raised his eyebrows with a daring grin.

                “Oh really?” He paused. “Who was it?”

                “That’s a good question, I’m trying to remember,” he retorted, before delving into his thoughts once again. _Schwerig—no, Schwering… and… Mich…Micha…_ “Oh! I remember!” he exclaimed excitedly. “Schwering and Michalowski, I think.”

                “Those their last names?” he asked, turning on the computer on his desk. Alex nodded.

                “Where are we?” he asked, earning an incredulous look from his history teacher.

                “… My classroom.” Alex looked around and realized he was sitting in the same chair that went to one of the desks. Aldo must have put this chair here especially for him. The classroom was also very dark, for some reason. He guessed it was late at night.

                “I don’t remember coming here,” he suddenly said, eyeing Aldo suspiciously. His eyes flicked around the dark room and he scooted the chair back, farther from Aldo’s desk, paranoid thoughts washing over him and clouding his mind.

                “Alex—” Mr. Raine started to say when Alexander rose from his chair, unsure of what to do. _How did I get here? Did he kidnap me? Was I knocked out and brought here? What’s he going to do to me next?_ His thoughts bombarded his conscience mercilessly and wildly, and he backed away from Aldo, fear striking in his heart. He’d stood up a little too fast again, though, and he stumbled into one of the desks. Aldo came after him and dragged him to his feet, holding him by his shoulders at arm’s length.

                “Alex, calm down,” he said firmly. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said quickly when Alexander flinched, staring up at Mr. Raine with wide, fearful eyes. “You walked here with me,”—he glanced at his watch— “seven minutes ago. Now, will you please sit down? There’s nothing to be scared of,” he assured him. That seemed to bring Alexander to his senses; he nodded slowly and hesitantly sat down again, Aldo following suit; he then mumbled something about Donny coming and continued typing something on his computer.

                As if on cue, Donny stormed in to the room and made a beeline straight for Alex, who was currently staring off into space, distracted with some other intense delusion. At one point, Donny was crouched in front of Alex, looking up at him in dismay.

                “Alex, what the fuck did you do to yourself?” Donny asked, though he didn’t expect an answer from the dissociating student. He searched Alex’s gaze for some sign of regret, or maybe acknowledgement. _Something._ He then turned to Aldo and asked him something about the kids who terrorized Omar, to which Mr. Raine relayed the names Alex had provided.

                “Are you sure these are the kids? Michalowski and Schwering?” Donny repeated doubtfully, turning to Alex. Alex snapped to attention and nodded shakily. Donny gave him a dubious look but turned back to Aldo.

                “Well, I’ll ask Omar to point the kids out tomorrow. He doesn’t seem to remember anything from last night, so I’m kind of worried about him…” Donny paused and glanced over his shoulder again at Alex, before turning to Aldo with a meaningful look. “We can’t just send Alexander back to his room, though…” He grimaced at the drug on the table. “I mean, he looks pretty shaken up. He could get a panic attack, or worse… I think someone should watch him for the rest of the night,” he said worriedly. Aldo nodded hesitantly.

                “Well, you can be the one to worry ‘bout that. Don’t you have a couch in your room or somethin’ for him to sleep on?” Aldo asked, eyeing the trembling kid out of the corner of his eye. Donny nodded after a moment before turning to Alex.

                “Alright, Alex, come on,” he said gently, helping him out of the chair and waving briefly to Aldo before leaving. He led Alex out of the classroom, and the two crossed paths with Mr. Landa on the way out. Hans smiled at them with a brisk “excuse me” and pushed past them into Aldo’s room. _How unusual._

                Donny and Alex left the building and headed over to the other campus. Donny had to discreetly smuggle Alex into the administration residential building, telling him to keep quiet when he looked like he was about to say something. He knocked rapidly on a door that was identical to those of the students’ dorms, and Omar appeared behind it a minute later, a bandage wrapped around his head. He raised his eyebrows questioningly at Donny upon seeing the visibly drugged student at his side.

                “Donny, is there something I should be aware of?” he asked pointedly, quickly stepping by to let the two of them enter. Donny led Alex to a couch and let him sit down there, before turning to Omar apologetically.

                “Uh, well, it’s kind of a long story,” he said with a nervous laugh, glancing over his shoulder at Alex before leaning closer to Omar. “Can we talk outside?” he asked in a low voice. Omar looked up at Donny with a thoroughly confused expression, but nodded his head and followed Donny into the hallway.

                “What the fuck is Alex doing here?” he demanded as soon as he shut the door behind him, leaning against the doorknob. “If someone catches you with him here, number one: I’m telling them it was you, and number two—”

                “Omar, calm down,” Donny said, raising his hands in surrender. “Okay, I’ll take full blame, alright, just listen.” He waited until Omar finally nodded his head and continued. “Aldo just found him earlier with LSD in his back pocket. He doesn’t even know what’s happening, and he probably won’t remember anything by tomorrow, so there’s that. I’m just worried about him, you know? I wanted to watch out for him, in case something happens…” His voice trailed away, and he gave Omar a thoughtful look. “Please?” he begged. Omar rolled his eyes but accepted, granting permission for Donny to carry on with this reckless plan. They both went back inside to find that Alex was already passed out on the sofa, and quietly made their way past the couch, careful not to disturb him.


	7. Chapter 7

                Alexander woke up in Mr. Ulmer’s dorm room the next morning, having completely forgotten how he’d ended up there. As soon as he was conscious, Donny practically dragged him off the couch and brought him across the campus to the social worker’s office. As Mr. Donowitz led Alex past the other students who were heading to their first classes of the day, casting him a reproachful glance every once in a while, Alex begged him to let him go to class.

                Donny didn’t seem to hear him, though, because he kept on with his brisk pace, continuing to drag the drowsy student by the wrist to Mr. LaPadite’s office. And, when they arrived in front of the social worker’s door, Donny muttered a quick “goodbye”, before turning on his heel and deserting the hungover student in the middle of the hallway. He must have been desperate to get rid of Alex. He must have been annoyed and disappointed. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with Alexander.

                “You must be Alexander Mannix,” a man with a thick French accent said from behind him. Alex turned from where he’d watched Mr. Donowitz disappear down a separate hallway and nodded hesitantly after a short pause.

                “Yeah.”

                “Hello, I’m Mr. LaPadite,” the man greeted with a superficial smile, extending his hand to Alexander, who reluctantly acquiesced, shaking the social worker’s hand. “Please, after you,” he said quickly, standing by to let Alexander pass him and enter into his office. Mr. LaPadite closed the door loudly behind him and sat down after Alex took a seat in one of the two chairs facing his desk.

                “Excuse me, but why am I here?” he asked indignantly, obviously forgetful about the night before. Mr. LaPadite sighed in exasperation and glanced at some papers on his desk, before looking back at Alex.

                “Mr. Mannix, it appears that you have no memory on account of what happened last night?” the man asked dubiously, with a grim expression plastered on his face. Alex’s face twisted in confusion and he shrugged.

                “Nope.”

                “Well, we won’t get into it just yet,” the French man said, his voice lowering for a moment. He looked at the papers again—Alex, from a distance, could tell that they were about him. “It says here that you are an only child, and you live with your father… Chris Mannix? Is that correct?”

                Alex barely suppressed a grimace at the mention of his father and nodded shamefully, his head hanging slightly. His father was probably the worst person Alex knew of. If his mother had still been alive, she would have divorced his father and he would have lived with her—in a perfect world, anyway.

                “And your father works for the Fereydun police station?”

                “Mhm.” Alex took a deep breath in, suddenly feeling as if there wasn’t enough air in the room. He became very uncomfortable when talking about his father, because Chris Mannix was an embarrassment to him for a number of reasons.

                Mr. LaPadite seemed to take a mental note of Alexander’s discomfort on the subject and pressed further ever so boldly: “How would you describe your relationship with your father?”

                It was at this point in time where Alex decided he was _not_ falling for this Frenchie’s bullshit.

 

                Alexander’s talk with Mr. LaPadite didn’t get much better from that point forward. The same nosy questions were asked, even after Alex shut down and refused to cooperate with him. Then he was pinned as “emotionally unstable”, of course. He later told Alex what he had been sent there for: Mr. Raine had found him in the middle of the upperclassmen level of the residency building carrying hallucinogens.

                _Fantastic._

                This explained Donny’s disappointment in him, and why he’d woken up in Omar and Donny’s dorm room. He suddenly felt sick upon hearing this, making the entire encounter more excruciating for him.

                When he was finally allowed to go to class, he practically leapt from his seat, mumbling a quick, less-than-enthusiastic “goodbye” under his breath on his way out, heading straight for— _oh shitttt._

He faltered in his step when he realized his first class of the day was History. _I wonder how much Mr. Raine hates me by now._ He laughed sickly to himself as he continued, walking slower this time; anything to stall, to save as much time as he could before he had to face his inevitable demise.

                He arrived at the history classroom just barely two minutes later, nearing twenty minutes late. Mr. LaPadite had really wasted that much time of his life. He sighed heavily before pushing the door open ever so softly, entering the room cautiously. He felt as if he was intruding; as if he was walking on a land mine. And he couldn’t bring himself to meet Aldo’s eyes, or respond when he greeted him. He felt his face turn hot again and quickly found his seat in silence, stumbling clumsily as he weaved his way through the other desks to his own. Mr. Raine seemed to notice this, but he took no action, and he quickly returned to teaching his class.

                Towards the end of class, Mr. Landa entered the room—the door, again, made a scratching sound at it opened and closed; this made Alex seriously ponder the age of the school—, retrieved Mr. Raine, and took him back outside with to have a few words with him. Alexander glimpsed them talking, their heads together, through the window on the door. After no longer than thirty seconds, Aldo peaked into the classroom and called Alex over. _Why can’t everyone just let me do my work?_

                He suppressed a groan of frustration and rose from his chair, sauntering over to the door. A longing glance at his desk. The door scratching shut. Worried glances shared between the two teachers.

                “Hello, Alex—may I call you Alex?” Mr. Landa said in a jocund manner. He wore a strained smile. Aldo said nothing. Alex nodded his head, yes. “Alright, Alex, Mr. Raine here told me about a few things that happened last night—don’t worry, you aren’t in trouble.” That was a lie. They all knew it. And, quite frankly, Alex was sick of Mr. Landa’s patronizing voice. Sure, he was a bonehead, but he didn’t need to constantly be reminded of it. Alex offered a weak smile in response, accompanied by a short, stark, fake laugh.

                “I was just wondering if you could tell me who it was who gave you those drugs you had,” Mr. Landa said, almost patiently. Alex so desperately wanted to turn to Aldo for guidance, but he couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes. He didn’t want to get on Jerry’s bad side—he’d been warned on several occasions of what Jerry did when he was angry at someone, and he wasn’t planning on finding out whether the rumors he’d heard were accurate or not. He felt sick, imagining himself dangling from the rafters by barbed wire, or chained to a bulldozer. _No, thank you very much._

                “I—I can’t tell you, I’m sorry.” Hans glanced up at Aldo, as if to say, _Well, that didn’t work as I’d expected—what now?_ It was funny, if Alex really thought about it—past the part where he was afraid of being scalped by Jerry.

                “Sure you can,” he tried again. Alex shook his head profusely.

                “I’m sorry, I can’t, I don’t—” Just then, Aldo decided to intervene, stepping closer to Alex and nearly looming over him so that he was basically forced to look up at him. Mr. Raine’s face was grave and worrisome. _Did I do that to him?_

                “Alex, listen to me—I need you to tell me who’s dealin’ you the drugs. I know you’re probably scared of what they’ll do and all that, I know. But trust me, I won’t let any harm come to you because of this. Now please, just give me the name,” he nearly pleaded, looking more genuinely concerned than Alex had ever seen him before. And, strangely enough, Alex trusted him in what he said. So, he acquiesced.

                “ _Jerry Weber_.”

 

 

                Donny closed the door behind him with a _slam_ upon returning to Omar’s dorm—he hadn’t meant to do it; in fact, he regretted doing it immediately after. But he had to release his anger somehow, and he’d rather take his rage out on a door than a person. He knew that his irate manner would only serve to upset Omar as well, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. So, with that in mind, Donny recomposed himself, taking a deep breath and burying the situation with Alexander as deep in the back of his mind as possible.

                He wasn’t angry at Alexander; no, he was worried. He felt responsible for what had happened, in a sense. He should have known. He’d noticed some suspicious things about Alex, and he wished he would have questioned him before. He felt almost guilty—mostly disappointed, though. And he wanted to kill whoever had sold Alex the LSD.

                He shook the thoughts from his mind and focused back on the present. “Alright, I’m taking off now!” he called to Omar, grabbing his stuff from beside the door. “If you need anything—” Donny stopped short when Omar appeared in the doorway to his room, fully dressed, his laptop bag strapped over his left shoulder. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Donny sputtered, utterly outraged.

                “To work,” Omar replied breathlessly.

                How could Omar possibly even _consider_ teaching his classes? There was still a significant concern about Omar’s safety in his classroom, what with whoever attacked him (he’d refused to tell anyone yet). And he still seemed so frail to Donny. After Donny witnessed what they’d done to him, he noticed Omar’s discomfort; how is shoulders seemed to sag in exhaustion, and how he shivered even though it wasn’t cold, and how he appeared as though he was trying not to cry out in pain.

                Before Donny could protest, Omar continued: “It’s an easy day, okay? I’m just gonna have the kids work independently while I grade some things.”

                “No, _not_ okay,” he retorted, shaking his head profusely—almost violently. “Look at you, you’re—you’re bein’ held together with fuckin’ stitches, and—can you even see?”

                “I have to go, Donny,” Omar sighed in exasperation. He seemed to have to save all of his energy from speaking—he was just barely able to keep his bag on his shoulder. He pushed past Donny, stumbling slightly. “I got another email this morning,” he persisted. “Please don’t be angry with me.” His voice quivered; not out of fear, but out of fatigue.

                Donny finally gave in, opening the door for Omar and walking out with him. The two left the residential building and walked, side by side, down the winding sidewalk that led to the school. Donny was almost equally as tired as Omar—he hadn’t had a wink of sleep the night before. He’d been constantly worried about Omar and Alexander.

                “I’m not angry with you, Omar. Don’t be thinkin’ like that. I just can’t let you get hurt again.”

                Omar managed a half-hearted chuckle in response, which he immediately regretted, for it sent a bayonet of pain straight through his chest. “I’m not sure anything worse can happen to me,” he said sarcastically, through gritted teeth. They continued solemnly along the sidewalk, surrounded in a heavy fog, until they came to their point of parting, where Donny would need to leave Omar to fend for himself.

                “Take care of yourself, okay?” the taller man asked, casting Omar a meaningful look. Omar nodded, a ghost of a smile crossing his face. He wanted to beg Donny not to leave him. He wanted to tell Donny how he felt horrible, how he was so afraid, and how he couldn’t do this anymore. He wanted to tell him everything. He wanted to tell him about the invisible bayonet he’d just been stabbed with. He wanted to be taken away from there. He would kill to be able to go to Donny’s class with him.

                “You too, Donny,” he said, his throat tightening as he spoke. He then reluctantly turned around to face the 17th building. He didn’t look back, as he knew Donny was already on the way to his class, all thoughts of Omar gone. He felt like he couldn’t stand for another second. _Man the fuck up,_ he told himself as he entered the building, his legs numb. He took care to avoid the rush of students who often bustled past him roughly.

                Donny waited until the doors had completely closed behind Omar before letting the despair settle in. He was terrified beyond words for Omar, though he’d never fully acknowledge the extent of his worry. He suppressed a deep, shaky sigh and turned on his heel, reluctantly trudging to his classroom. He was already late and would soon arrive at the small classroom to find it crowded with frustrated students. It wasn’t that he cared whether or not they were pleased with him—because they never were. They were always dissatisfied with what he had to offer, and they often discouraged him with the way they seemed to speak as loud as they could in order to drown out the sound of his voice. This was a daily thing, though, so he was used to putting up with it. What he had _not_ grown accustomed to was having Omar’s well-being weighing so heavy on his conscience—and it would remain as such for the next two periods, until the beginning of the lunch hour, when he would see Omar once again.

 

                Omar apologized near ten times as he rushed into his classroom, dropping his laptop case on the table at the front of the room. He was tense, waiting for the onslaught of the usual curses and insults he would usually receive at this point. As he hesitantly glanced around the class, however, he became extremely self-conscious. No one had said a word since he entered the room. Instead, everyone stared at him, mouths agape. The majority of the faces appeared confused. Some were amused, a few proud, and only one—Rivka—seemed legitimately horrified. “Mr. Ulmer,” she whispered as he slumped down at his desk, which was situated directly in front of Rivka's table. “What happened to you?”

                “Nothing, nothing. Don't worry about it.” Omar fought to keep the edge out of his voice as he sank down behind his laptop, pulling his overcoat around himself tightly.

                “Sorry,” Rivka whispered again. “Are we still having a test today?”

                Omar huffed with exasperation. “No…” He raised his voice slightly in order to address the whole class. “The test is being postponed. You can just study this period.” His voice faltered slightly at the end when he realized no one heard him. No one tried to hear him. It didn’t matter, though—they rarely even did what they were supposed to on a normal day.

                The next hour and a half seemed to him like an eternity. Omar tried to make the time pass by grading papers, but he went through the small pile quickly, considering most of his students didn't turn in any work. He was glad to be done, however, for he had suddenly developed the onset of an excruciating headache; more than just the dull ache he normally experienced, this one pounded against his skull mercilessly, and he struggled to make out the noises around him over the blood rushing in his ears. Omar also noticed that the room had become uncomfortably cold. The air seemed thin to him, as if he was at the highest peak of a mountain. The early winter air must have overruled the building’s heating system—this _was_ Germany, after all. Strangely enough, not one of the students made a complaint about it.

                Every so often, Omar would catch a furtive glance from Rivka. He didn’t mind her concern, per se, but it made him feel vulnerable. He despised that feeling—as if he was being inspected under a microscope—for something or _someone_ always took advantage of the weaknesses they found.

                Omar knew that he could never be at ease again, not until the next incident. His paranoia would never be put to rest until the inevitable finally occurred—this notion terrified him, even more so because of how little time he may have left, and in how many ways it could happen. For now, though, he'd push that fear down, just as he had earlier. His fear, his contempt, his pain, all of it. He never intended to tell Donny, either. He could not and _would_ not confide in anyone— _Why should they have to deal with my burdens?_

                Omar's headache increased tenfold as the class bell blared overhead, and all of his students filed out of the room, soon replaced by a new, more cynical group. He didn't bother giving them any instruction. Instead, he graded what little work that period had turned in and continued to stare dazedly at the wall until the next bell finally rang.

                This period seemed to pass so much quicker than the previous one; when the bell sounded off, Omar was disoriented, snapping out of his trance-like state only in time to see the last student march their way out into the hall. It took him a few moments to process the fact that, finally, he could see Donny again. With this in mind, he nearly leapt from his chair towards the door which, though it was supposed to be used only in case of a fire, he utilized it on a daily basis anyway. Sure, it hurt to move with such haste as he did, but it hurt more to be away from Donny for so much as a second longer than was necessary.

                Having agreed weeks ago that meeting anywhere in the open was too risky, Donny and Omar had both rushed to Aldo’s room, Donny almost knocking down students in the process, for each of which he made half-assed apologies. They arrived in front of the history class simultaneously and, for a second, both shared a warm, relieved smile. Donny’s was the first to falter. “How’re you doing?” he questioned, even despite already knowing the answer.

                “I'm… okay. I’m okay,” came the uncertain reply.

                “Good.” Donny nodded awkwardly. His arms were pinned at his sides; if they were anything else, they would be wrapped around Omar, and the wall he had spent three hours building the foundation for in his mind would come crashing down. “Well, I guess, let's…” He motioned to the door with a tilt of his head.

                “Yeah.”

                They sat at the edge of Aldo’s classroom, scarcely socializing. They listened, and made occasional bullshit comments. After a dull, half-hearted conversation about the latest faculty meeting, there was a pause. They were all aware that this small talk was merely a way to avoid the acknowledgement of their grave situations. So, they sat for an instant in that smothering silence, taking what little comfort was offered by each other's company and shared plights. It didn't feel whole, though, and the recognition of Smithson's absence settled upon the seven other teachers uneasily.

                The breaking of that quiet was first initiated by Simon. He had observed just minutes before that Omar’s behavior was peculiar, seeming lethargic and drained. “Oh, you don't look too good,” he muttered. “Not at all.”

                Donny, who had refrained from looking at him for the past half hour, finally gave notice. Witnessing Omar’s shivering, pale-faced state made him tense up. The man’s eyelids were drooping, and his forehead was beaded with sweat.

                “He must have a fever,” Wilhelm concluded. Aldo moved to put the back of his hand against Omar’s forehead, but he pushed it away.

                “I'm fine,” Omar assured unconvincingly, his voice low and raspy. He swayed slightly.

                “The fuck you are,” Aldo retorted. “You gotta get yourself a doctor or somethin'.”

                “Mhm,” was Omar's only reply before slumping against Donny's side, unconscious.

                “Aw, fuck,” Donny breathed, holding steadfast beneath Omar's shoulders. The other teachers looked on with apprehension as Donny propped Omar up carefully, making sure not to let him fall. “Okay—alright.” His voice caught on the last syllable. He felt so helpless. “Shit… what do I—”

                “He has to get to bed, immediately. I’ll take a look and try to find out what has happened.” Wicki stood up and opened the classroom door. “Can you carry him?”


	8. Chapter 8

                About a month later, in the beginning of November, Hans received an email from the Principal, which briefed him on some new plans for Fereydun’s “Student Achievement Program”. Hitler’s instructions for Landa were to gather IQ test results and exam scores from every single student; and, if they hadn’t already been given learning disorder screenings, Hans would be in charge of distributing those as well. Any student who didn’t provide adequate scores and results would be removed from the school posthaste.

                Of course, if he didn’t comply, Hans knew he would likely be either fired or demoted. He couldn’t take that—it wasn’t his ego or his narcissism, but rather the fact that he could barely manage to live off of what little money he had. After what happened, he had nothing.

_Suddenly, he was back at the crime scene. The sound of blaring sirens assailed his ears. There was yellow tape everywhere, just like in the movies. The only thing that was left of his son was a white outline. The detectives spoke to him, giving him their condolences. He thanked them, because he didn’t have enough energy left in him to manage a nasty retort. At the time, he couldn’t imagine going home after this—leaving his son as he was, in a black garbage bag._

                He didn’t know how to make a decision about this. He thought that maybe he could just quit. Maybe he could get a new job as an accountant or something. But he didn’t want to do that either, because, admittedly, he didn’t want to leave Aldo. And, even if he did quit, there would be someone else to take his place and carry out the same job. So, for the next week, Landa read through Hitler’s emails over and over. He weighed the pros and cons of his choices. On one hand, he completely despised the idea. It was cruel. On the other hand, he couldn’t stop Hitler from enforcing these rules, whether it be through him or someone else. And he needed a place to live, anyway. His rent was overdue. He received further information on the “advancements” that day.

                The bare minimum acceptable IQ score was 112. Any student who scored anywhere near that number was to make up for their “inadequacy” with nearly perfect exam scores in all core subjects. Any student with Autism, Dyslexia, ADHD, or the like—even at the mildest diagnosis—was to be rejected as well. Hans had never done anything so horrible before. But Hitler kept pressing for an answer from Hans, and he seemed to be backed into a corner.

 

                One week after he had received the first email, he told Aldo about it. It was during the history teacher’s planning period, when the subject was brought up by Aldo himself. He’d heard about these plans and, quite bluntly, prompted Hans about it.

                “I know you know about this whole ‘Students Achieve’ thing,” Aldo was saying to Hans, who was sitting on his desk. He’d been swinging his legs out of boredom, but he seemed to freeze when Aldo spoke. His hand twitched.

                “It’s called The Student Achievement Program,” he corrected, his voice low and rigid when he said it. But, just as he said it, he resumed with his leg-swinging, all signs of discomfort suddenly disappearing. “Anyway, yes,” he admitted, speaking with ease once again. “Hitler asked me to lead it.” He stared at his feet, because he neither wanted nor needed to look up at Aldo to see his reaction. He could _feel_ his outrage like heat radiating from a fire. And he felt like his skin was melting under Aldo’s glare.

                Some would say Aldo and Hans had been together as a couple, more or less, for a few weeks. It wasn’t the most stable of relationships. They didn’t think of it as a relationship at all, because they’d had so many fall-outs and fights that they’d lost track. It was more like a bunch of short-lived relationships, separated by even shorter hiatuses—most lasting a few hours. Once, Hans _did_ completely avoid Aldo for an entire day because his shirt was inside-out. Aldo, on the other hand, could only ignore Hans for a few hours before he had to confront him. Hans was afraid, though, that there would be a fight that never ended. That he would wait for Aldo to finally enter his office to yell at him, so they could end it and get on with their lives—and the moment would never come. The hours would turn to days and then fade into the distant past. Once again, all would be lost. And every time he felt Aldo’s anger, he was reminded of this deep-rooted fear.

                “But you aren’t thinkin’ about doin’ it, right?” Raine asked, daring Landa to say yes. Hans glanced up at him for a moment. His throat tightened when he saw how Aldo clenched his jaw, trying to control his rage. He was livid, Hans could tell.

                “I—of course I don’t _want_ to, Aldo,” he said quickly, scrambling desperately for an excuse. “I honestly don’t know what to do, though… If I say no, he’ll likely fire me.”

                “Well that’s better than a ton of students gettin’ kicked out for not bein’ geniuses!” Aldo snapped, rising from his chair. Hans froze once again, his eyes fixed on Aldo, watching him carefully. His narcissistic side of him cursed Aldo for saying such a thing. But, deep down, he knew it was true. The right thing to do was refuse. “You _son of a bitch_ , you can’t do this to them. I’ll kill you, I swear to God,” he ranted. He would go on like this for a few minutes, yelling aimless curses and the like. He’d fail to get his point across, but Hans would understand the reason behind his rambling. He always had a reason.

                “I’m broke,” he tried to interrupt. Aldo kept talking, louder this time. “Aldo… _Aldo_.”

                “ _WHAT?”_

                “Aldo, I can’t pay my bills anymore. If I get fired, I’ll be homeless.” Hans was good at bullshitting people, and Aldo knew he tended to lie excessively to get his way or to attract attention. But he was genuine this time. Either that or he was getting even better at bullshitting. “I’m serious, please believe me,” he begged, hopping off the desk to face Aldo, trying to show through his expression that he wasn’t lying. Aldo stared blankly at him for a moment. He almost looked worried—mostly just ponderous.

                “Well why didn’t you just say so?” he asked briskly.

                “Wh—what do you mean?”

                “I _mean,_ why didn’t you tell me, so I could let you stay with me?”

                “Why would you do that.”

                “Because you’re broke?”

                “Oh.”

                They both fell silent for a long moment—this usually happened when their quarrel was coming to a close. Hans breathed a sigh of relief, which broke the tension slightly. He considered Aldo’s vague proposal in his mind. He hadn’t thought about asking anyone for help—he usually stubbornly refused assistance. He realized then that accepting would be out of character for him.

                “No, I—I can’t,” he said, voice tightening again.

                “Why not?”

                “ _Because I just can’t, Aldo,_ ” he snapped, crossing his arms defensively and glaring at the ground in front of him. “I don’t know, I… I can’t do that to you.”

                “Hah, cute. I bet you’re just fine with spending people’s money, you don’t give a fuck about that.” This was true. “Here, how overdue is your rent?”

                “Five…”

                “Five _what_? Five days?” he asked, faltering a little.

                “Five _weeks_ ,” Landa said miserably.

                “The fuck?” he chuckled. “How’d you get by that long?” Hans shrugged. “Okay, yeah, you’re comin’ with me. Alright?”

                Hans stared at Aldo as if he’d just watched him shoot someone. “Are you crazy?! What about—what if someone finds out? What if they tell Hitler?!” If Hitler did find out, they could take a wild guess at the consequences. Judging on all Hitler has done to the school already… well, if he did find out about a gay couple, he probably wouldn’t hesitate to “eliminate” them from the school as well. Both Landa and Raine understood this.

And Hans didn’t want anyone of a higher command to find out about them. Not just Hitler. A pathetic part of him wanted no one to know, because then no one would think anything bad about them, or do anything bad to them—like they did to Omar. He worried for Aldo more than he worried about himself in the latter sense.

“Hans, don’t worry about it.” Aldo still hadn’t figured out how to pronounce Landa’s name correctly. “No one’s gonna find out.”

                “You’re an idiot,” he mumbled derisively. “Of course they will. _Everyone_ will find out.”

                “ _Fine_ ,” Aldo conceded, rolling his eyes. “ _If_ they do—and that’s a big _if_ —then so what? Who’s gonna tell Hitler?”

                “Hellstrom? Rachtman, Goebbels, Kliest…” Hans could go on for a while—thanks to Aldo’s impatience, however, he didn’t need to.

                “Yeah, but _they’re_ all on the first floor. _I’m_ on the second,” he cut in, speaking in an undermining tone. “The only person on our floor who isn’t on our side is that Hermann guy—and you guys are pals, right? You can make him keep his fuckin’ mouth sh—”

                “Okay, _fine_ ,” Hans finally said, internally cursing himself for giving in. He would refuse to carry out Hitler’s orders. He would probably lose his job, but that didn’t seem too scary of a concept anymore.

                “Alright, let’s go.”

                “Go _where_?”

                “Go get your shit from your room.”

                “But what about your class?”

                “Don't worry about them. They’ll live.”

                So, that day, Hans moved in with Aldo. It wasn’t as awkward as he’d initially thought it would be—it almost felt natural; as if he was just coming home from the scene of his son’s murder, and the several years in between that time and the present were just one long car ride. He didn’t have a lot of things in his room, anyway. He’d sold everything valuable in the few months prior, as he’d been struggling with deep debt and managing his budget for a long time. His belongings essentially consisted of pillows, blankets, and all his work supplies—and there wasn’t much else to be accounted for.

                Needless to say, moving in wasn’t the hard part—keeping discreet about it was. Though they were both rather reserved in nature as it was, they couldn’t keep Aldo’s friends from being nosy about it. Hans only occasionally visited Aldo’s meetings, but the few times he did go were enough to get a sense of the gossip that had ensued among them regarding Aldo and Hans. This likely originated from Hirschberg, who resided next door from them.

                Henceforth, he continued to catch wind of little snippets of conversation that included him and Aldo—most of which came from some of the newer faculty and were rather scornful and obscene. Hans gradually became more and more paranoid, anticipating the day when Hitler would find out.


	9. Chapter 9

                In spite of the dry, viciously cold air, Smithson felt impervious to the elements. There was a warmth that resided within him which could never be extinguished. As far as he could remember, this sensation was alien to him. For the first time in many, many years, he was happy—actually, beyond happy. It was such a new and exciting feeling, something he didn’t think he’d ever felt to this extent before. It had been difficult to pinpoint the emotion at first, as happiness had become such a foreign concept to him in recent years. Of course, it was very likely that the tingling in his face was a side effect of the diphenhydramine pill he had taken earlier, but Smithson chose to believe it was a natural occurrence.

                “I hope you don’t find that I am being too bold,” Archie whispered affectionately into Smithson’s ear.

                “No, no, not at all. I, uh…” A sheepish grin had appeared on Smithson’s lips, though Archie was unable to see it, as Smithson had suddenly taken great interest in something on the ground. He mumbled something unintelligible.

                “Hm?” Archie grinned, placing his finger beneath Smithson’s chin and tilting his head up so their eyes met. “You _what_?”

                Smithson flashed a brief smile then stood up on his toes to press his forehead against Archie’s, eyes closed. “You know exactly what I said,” he muttered.

                Archie Hicox and Smithson Utivich had been seeing each other since the day after Utivich’s encounter with Hans Landa. They hadn’t formally met until that day, nearly a month ago, when Archie appeared at Utivich’s classroom door to ask to borrow some texts. It was completely unexpected, them being such different people; and yet, they had just enough in common that they could carry on delightfully, conversing for hours at a time, often talking all night until the sun shone over the windowsill. Neither of them had been in such a relationship until then—though that isn’t to say that they hadn’t both had their fair share of one-night stands or painfully drawn-out affairs before. Regardless, all of that was in the past now, and they would never look back.

                “Mm. Yes,” Archie replied absentmindedly, moving his hand back to rest on Smithson’s waist. He craned his neck to kiss the top of Utivich’s head, the owner of which relaxed to his own height and took to resting his head on Hicox’s scarf, arms wrapped around his neck. The two remained like this, not saying a word. Their hour of time together on the tall steps behind the auditorium was almost up.

 

                The six teachers and Officer Stiglitz, having met at their usual location, sat and talked amongst their respective groups. Donny and Aldo stood by the west window, accompanied by Omar, who was having one of his better days and so was forced to come teach. In the last month, Wilhelm had come to the conclusion that Omar had fallen ill because he’d managed, somehow, to contract pneumonia. The biology teacher, through extensive research, had grown certain that this was due to Omar’s fractured rib’s scratching of one of his lungs, damaging the tissue and causing it to become infected. Though the break wasn’t severe (not in itself, anyway), the rib seemed to refuse to heal. Every few days, Omar would be attacked by a bought of coughing, which racked his weakened body violently—along with severe nausea and, consequently, vomiting. On these days, Donny didn’t go to class either, instead staying with Omar, helping him through this sickness and comforting him to the best of his ability. It was hard to tell at this point who was more terrified for what the future held in store for Omar.

For now, though, Donny had his ponderings of the future set aside in his mind. He’d caught sight of something rather bizarre out the window, and he couldn’t help but stare, perplexed. From this specific part of the building, Donny had the unfortunate advantage of having a clear view of the backside of the auditorium.

                “What’re you lookin’ at that’s so important?” Aldo asked, an edge of impatience to his voice, causing Donny’s attention to wander from the strange and distant scene. Donny glanced at Aldo only briefly, his brows furrowed. A look of astounded confusion was still apparent on his face.

                “Uh, Aldo…” Donny started, nodding toward the window, “I think you’re gonna want to see this.” Aldo rolled his eyes, evidently irritated, and reluctantly leaned over and looked out the window, following Donny’s line of vision.

                “What the fuck,” he muttered through clenched teeth, his voice low. “Who the hell is that with Utivich?” He squinted and stuck his head out even further, his face nearly pressed against the window. “It’s that fuckin’ pretentious Brit, ain’t it? What in _God’s_ name is he doin’ to Utivich's face?” Although he made an effort to keep his voice controlled, he was almost hissing at this point, seething in anger.

                “Oh no…” Omar mumbled under his breath, wincing apprehensively as he watched the scene outside unfold.

                “I think…” Donny began carefully, “I _think_ , Aldo, it’s called kissing.” Despite the blunt sarcasm in his statement, an air of complete dubiety lingered.

                Aldo shot Donny a reproachful sideways glance. “Yeah, no shit, Donowitz. What I _mean_ is, what’s goin’ through Utivich’s goddamn little mind? He can’t even fuckin—”

                “Aldo!” Donny spit the name with such force that it made Omar jump.

                “What?”

                “Bigger picture? Don’t you think it’s  _kinda_ risky for them to be doin’ that _right there_?”

                “Well what the hell you want me to do ‘bout it?” he retorted. Donny sighed in resignation, shaking his head.

                “I don’t know…” he mumbled, distracting himself with his watch. “There isn’t enough time to go down there anyway,” he reasoned with a shrug.

                “I can talk to him about it later,” Omar offered quietly. It was surprising to hear him speak, as he didn’t appear to have enough energy to even stay standing.

                Aldo and Donny nodded sensibly. They both knew Omar was better suited for doing this—without humiliating Smithson in the process, anyway. With this settled, the three men bid their farewells just as the bell rang, and each returned to their respective classrooms. Elsewhere, Archie caressed Smithson’s face once more before regrettably turning away and heading up the steps that took him to the auditorium.


End file.
